Public Bill Committee

[Mr. Roger Gale in the Chair]

Clause 15

Post-mortem examinations

Brian Iddon: I beg to move amendment 188, in clause 15, page 8, line 22, after practitioner, insert including a radiologist.

Roger Gale: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 363, in clause 15, page 8, line 25, at end insert
, so long as he or she is supervised by a qualified pathologist..
Amendment 190, in clause 23, page 13, line 31, after staff, insert
including staff available outside normal office hours,.
Amendment 189, in clause 37, page 22, line 37, at end insert
post mortem examination includes both invasive and non-invasive examination;.

Brian Iddon: I am sure that you will be pleased to hear that I have no correspondence to shuffle today, Mr. Gale, just as I did not have any correspondence to shuffle in our last sitting week, despite the fantasies of journalist Henry Porter in The Observer the Sunday before last.
The amendments are interrelated. About 10 years ago, Her Majestys coroner for the Manchester Central jurisdiction, Len Gorodkin, proposed that post-mortems should be possible by non-intrusive examination of bodies by magnetic resonance imaging. He had the sizeable Jewish communities in Greater Manchester in mind when he made the proposal. In the past few years, working mainly with the Bolton Council of Mosques, Her Majestys Manchester West coroner, Jennifer Leeming, has developed the technique into an acceptable way of carrying out post-mortems, and the so-called Bolton protocol has spread to other Greater Manchester boroughs and towns and cities throughout the country.
The Manchester West jurisdiction covers Salford, where there is a sizeable Jewish community, Bolton, where there is a sizeable Muslim community, Wigan and Leigh, but I should stress that MRI post-mortems are available for the whole community, not just the Jewish and Muslim communities. Some families have asked for MRI post-mortems because they need the procedure to be carried out in a hurryfor example, if they are visiting a loved one in this country who dies, and they need to return quickly to their own country because of their occupation.
The Manchester West jurisdiction is one of the 10 busiest in the country, with more than 4,000 deaths reported each year, costing the council tax payers in the four local authority areas £1,434,000 each year. Council tax payers in the jurisdiction therefore bear a higher cost than council tax payers in other jurisdictions.

Tim Boswell: Does the hon. Gentleman agreehe might have said thisthat there is often a quite important religious and ethnic minority interest in swift burial or disposal? If formalities have to be undergone, they could extend the process and the degree of concern in those communities.

Brian Iddon: The hon. Gentleman is correctthat is the main reason why the procedure has been developed in the Manchester West jurisdiction.
The average cost of an MRI post-mortem is £885 and 50 to 60 are carried out each year. They are usually carried out overnight, when the MRI scanners are not required to scan living people, for obvious reasons. Costs are usually met by the family, but the Jewish Burial Board in Greater Manchester meets the cost of a scan for its members.
Consultant radiologists play an important role in determining whether an MRI post-mortem will reveal the cause of death, which is the reason for amendment 188. Radiologists feel strongly about their inclusion in the Bill.
Of the 50 to 60 examinations carried out in this way, perhaps one will have to be referred to a pathologist in the end because the MRI post-mortem did not reveal the actual cause of death. That is explained to the families who choose to undertake the procedure.
One advantage of an MRI post-mortem over a pathological examination is that the results can be kept on a disc for future examination, if necessary. Also, it is usually quicker than a pathological examination, especially when histology samples must be sent away for analysis, which can take several days or sometimes even weeks.
The Manchester West coroners jurisdiction provides a full out-of-hours service for the issue of documentation for the release of deceased persons for burial, cremation or even removal from the UK, which is common in Muslim communities. In Manchester West, not only Her Majestys coroner but the administrative assistant who issues such documents is available out of hours.
I am pleased that the Bills explanatory notes refer to such post-mortems, on page 26. The procedure is at least now recognised by this Government. The power to request a post-mortem examination by MRI scan is underpinned by clause 16, which we shall consider in a moment. The clause gives the coroner the power to move a body between jurisdictions.
Obviously, an MRI scanner might not be available in the coroners own jurisdiction. Non-invasive MRI post-mortems are not yet available for children in Greater Manchester, as no participating paediatric radiologist is available. In such cases, it would be necessary to move the body from Greater Manchester to Sheffield, where the nearest consultant paediatric radiologist is located. Here in the south, Great Ormond Street childrens hospital also has a specialist radiologist.
To summarise, radiologists feel strongly that MRI post-mortems are a developing technique that will spread rapidly across Britain, particularly in the communities that I have mentioned, and that will involve a considerable number of our citizens. They feel that now is the appropriate time, as an opportunity such as the Bill comes only rarely, to put radiologists on the face of legislation. That is the substance of amendment 188.
Amendment 189 is consequential. It defines a post-mortem as either invasive or non-invasive. Again, the coroners to whom I have spoken, such as Jennifer Leeming in the Manchester West jurisdiction, and radiologists feel that there should be a definition in the clause along the lines of my amendment.
Clause 23 relates to providing accommodation overnight and at weekends. I remind right hon. and hon. Members that coroners, by the nature of their employment, must make themselves available 24/7, so that is not a problem. Jennifer Leeming, in my jurisdiction, is always available if needed. Furthermore, administrative assistants are provided in the Greater Manchester West jurisdiction as well. The cost of the provision is not excessive and would be met in most cases by the charge for the MRI scan in the first place. I have pleasure in urging the Committee to accept the two amendments, particularly amendment 188.

Henry Bellingham: I welcome you to this afternoons sitting of the Committee, Mr. Gale.
The suggestion of the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East that we put the term radiologist on the face of the Bill makes a great deal of sense. I rise to speak to our amendment 363, which would ensure that if a suitable practitioner is not a registered medical practitioner, he or she is supervised by a qualified pathologist.
There may well be cases when such scans are carried out by relatively junior technicians. As the hon. Gentleman suggested, the use of such highly sophisticated medical equipment will probably take place out of hours. He also alluded to the fact that in two of the great religions in this country, Judaism and Islam, there is an imperative that bodies be released for burial the following day, if at all possible. I am concerned that short cuts should not be taken and that, where fairly junior technicians are in charge, they should always be supervised by a qualified pathologist.

Brian Iddon: I did mention the consultant radiologist.

Henry Bellingham: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for underlining that point.
Our amendment speaks for itself. I hope that the Minister understands why we are keen to put that extra safeguard in place. I agree with what the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East said in speaking to his amendments. That aside, it is a good clause, and it should command the support of the entire Committee.

Jennifer Willott: This is clearly an important matter for religious reasons, and it is important for those who are suffering a bereavement in the family, for whom it is clearly a difficult time. Having to reconcile ones religious feelings and beliefs with the British justice system can be difficult. It is appropriate that we be as sympathetic as possible.
I support the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East. The proposal seems to be a sensible way forward, particularly as it works in the jurisdiction where his constituents live. However, it has been suggested to various members of the Committee that coroners should have a duty to make families aware of the option for the non-invasive post-mortem as well as the surgical post-mortem.
In areas such as Manchester, the technique is well known; it is supported and promoted and people are aware of it. In other parts of the country, however, religious communities may be much smaller and less well represented. They may not have the support of the surrounding community, and they may not be aware of the options if they feel strongly that a post-mortem should not be carried out. Will the Minister say whether it would be possible to require information on what is possible and what is available to be spread more widely?

Bridget Prentice: Welcome, Mr. Gale, to this afternoons discussions.
I entirely understand why my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) tabled the amendments, but I believe they are unnecessary for two simple reasons. First, all practising radiologists should also be registered medical practitioners; they would therefore fall within the definition of a registered medical practitioner under clause 15(3)(a). I suspect that we would all be a little uneasy if someone who was not a registered medical practitioner were able to carry out the post-mortem procedureinvasive or otherwisewithout having been designated as suitable by the chief coroner.
Secondly, we want only those who are properly trained and qualified to carry out such procedures. In clause 15(3)(b), we provide the necessary assurance that only those who are registered medical practitioners or who are otherwise recognised by the chief coroner as possessing the relevant skills can carry out such procedures. For example, that would apply to some toxicologists, forensic scientists and forensic archaeologists as much as to radiologists.
Amendment 363, tabled by the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk, goes too far in the opposite direction. Saying that we would need a qualified pathologist to oversee people who, by definition, are already qualified medical practitionersthey would have to be so for the coroner to have allowed them to carry out the post-mortemis over-egging the pudding. If the chief coroner had any doubt about the suitability of certain individuals, either he would not appoint them or he would take advice from the national medical adviser.

Tim Boswell: I am conscious that the General Medical Council is putting in place requirements for quinquennial recertification and demonstration of fitness to practise for general medical practitioners. Can we have an assurance that the chief coroner will at least look at a system that shadows that for persons whom he approves, so that such approval will not be lifetime approval, but will be subject to regular review?

Bridget Prentice: That is a very positive and constructive suggestion, and I will certainly take it forward. That is exactly the way to ensure that we raise standards right across the coronial system.
If the medical adviser is able to advise the chief coroner that a person is suitably qualified, another qualified pathologist should not be required to be present to oversee their work and to ensure that they carry out the post-mortem in a proper fashion.
On the points raised by the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central on the availability of MRI scans, we certainly want to encourage coroners to use non-invasive post-mortems as well as invasive ones. In future, coroners should make people aware of the opportunity to use that form of post-mortem, although it is slightly more expensive. The problem at the moment is that not every area can benefit from the work of people such as Jennifer Leeming or from facilities such as those in Greater Manchester. Over time, however, I would like such facilities to become available across the country, so that non-invasive post-mortems might become more common. I say that not only because of the religious reasons that have been mentioned, but because families might have other reasons for feeling that such a post-mortem is appropriate.
On amendment 189, it is not necessary to set out in the Bill that post-mortems include invasive and non-invasive post-mortem examinations, because the drafting of the Bill outlines that. To be clear, however, let me say that the provisions that refer to post-mortems do indeed apply to both invasive and non-invasive post-mortems.
Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East talked about coronial staff being available 24 hours a day. Clause 23 makes it clear that staff have to be available to ensure that the coroner can carry out their functions properly. In effect, that means that someone has to be available 24 hours a day to ensure that a post-mortem could, for example, be carried out urgently in the middle of the night. It is implicit in clause 23 that staff will be available outside normal office hours.
On that basis, I hope that my hon. Friend will withdraw his amendment. For the reasons that I have outlined, I also ask the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk not to press his amendment.

Brian Iddon: Based on those reassurances, which are now on the record, I am prepared to withdraw my amendment, but I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister and her civil servants will try to expand the non-invasive post-mortem service, which has been proved to work over five years. Despite some criticisms, it does workindeed, in only one or two cases does it not work and a full pathological examination follows. I thank my hon. Friend for her comments and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 15 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 16

Power to remove body

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Jennifer Willott: I have a couple of points to make about the removal of bodies. In some cases, the body might be in difficult circumstancesfor example, on a railway line or protected land. Some coroners insist on using their own preferred undertaker to remove the bodies, whether or not the undertaker has been trained in, for example, health and safety procedures if they are dealing with a body on a railway line. That has been raised with me as a concern, because it can threaten the safety of the site where the body is located and of the people operating in that area. It can also lead to longer closures and unnecessary disruption to, for example, a railway line if the job is being done by someone who is untrained and does not know how to work in those particularly dangerous circumstances.
There is no obligation in the Bill or in any of the previous Acts for undertakers to have any training or authorisation. We have tabled an amendment to a provision later in the Bill that would require a code of practice on the powers to be given to coroners in relation to entry to and searching and seizure of land. It would also be helpful if the Minister considered addressing, whether in a code of practice or in guidance laid alongside the powers to remove the body, the training that is available or necessary for undertakers in these cases. The number of such cases is very limited, but they are specific examples. We are talking not just about railway lines, but about electricity substations, power stations, airports, motorways, major roads, zoo enclosures and so onplaces where the circumstances raise health and safety issues.

Tim Boswell: I have two comments to make. The first adverts to something that I talked about the other day, where a former employee died on my farm, in a field. The difficulty was that because it was located in the county of Northamptonshire, the body was removed to Northampton, whereas it would have been much more convenient for all the relatives and everyone else had it gone to Banbury, which is a much shorter distance but would have entailed crossing a boundary. I say to the Minister that although I understand that she has made provision in earlier clauses for the transfer of jurisdiction, it is important that that is tied up fairly early on, particularly when there are those borderline issues, so that the process is as unintrusive to the family as possible. There may well be a role for training undertakers and it may well be that the coroners officer has some ability at least to make inquiries at an early stage to see what would be appropriate.
My second point relates to the provision in subsection (3) about removal of a body
to a place provided by a person who has not consented to its being removed there.
That seems entirely reasonable. No one, to put it crudely, wants a body dumped on them without their knowledge or consent. I realise that there is a saving for local authority premises in the second part of that subsection, but if the practice in, say, an area of relatively low coronial intensity, where there were only a few cases, was to use private sector premises such as an undertakers chapel of rest or something similar, things would be difficult if that was not easily available on a 24/7 basis. I hope that the Minister can address that point administratively and ensure that if outsourcing, if I may call it that, is to be applied, it is done in a way that does not create further delay.
The common interest, which is also shared by the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central, is to produce as easy, unintrusive and unobjectionable a procedure in difficult circumstances as possible. That is important both for the process of justice and for the interests of the family, who are bound to be feeling low when a death has occurred.

Bridget Prentice: May I pick up on the hon. Gentlemans last sentence? He said that the procedure should be as unobjectionable, sensitive and easy as possible, not just in public policy terms but for the benefit of the family. Of course that is absolutely right and it is what the Bill is about. On that basis, I hope that I can reassure him and the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central that we will consider those sensitivities very carefully. The whole point of clause 16 is to ensure that, where possible, the body is removed to a place that is more appropriate for the family.
I have not heard of the examples that the hon. Lady outlined, so that has sent a little bee buzzing around in my brain. I shall have conversations with the National Association of Funeral Directors and others as to how to take this forward, and whether it needs to be part of a code of practice.

Jennifer Willott: The Minister will probably find that Railtrackor Network Rail, I should saywill be happy to speak to her about it. I know it is concerned.

Bridget Prentice: I will resist the temptation to say anything sarcastic about Railtrack, but I welcome its positive attitude in wanting to be helpful. I assure the hon. Lady that we will do what we can.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 16 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 17 ordered to stand part of the Bill

Clause 18

Medical Examiners

Henry Bellingham: I beg to move amendment 360, in clause 18, page 9, line 23, at beginning insert The Chief Coroner in consultation with.

Roger Gale: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 116, in clause 18, page 9, line 23, after Wales), insert
, after consulting the local senior coroner,.
Amendment 361, in clause 18, page 9, line 26, leave out Each Trust or Board and insert The Chief Coroner.

Henry Bellingham: This very important clause introduces the new post of medical examiner. That post is very important indeed to the future of the coronial service. It is a crucial part of the new set of checks and balances, especially in this post-Shipman era. Dame Janet Smiths 600-page report on the Shipman tragedy strongly recommended that a new post of medical examiner be introduced.
Resources are an issue. Touching briefly on subsection (2)(a), the explanatory notes state that primary care trusts and local health boards must
appoint enough medical examiners, and make available enough funds and other resources (including medical examiners officers) to enable the medical examiners to discharge their functions
correctly, properly and efficiently. What sanctions there will be on the Department of Health in the event of failure to meet those commitments, and what discussions has the Minister had with her counterparts in the Department of Health?
That is an important preliminary point, but the key issue is the independence of medical examiners. It is wrong that medical examiners will be appointed by the PCTs and LHBs. Amendments 360 and 361 would make a small but significant change so that the chief coroner would appoint a medical examiner in consultation with the PCTs and LHBs. It is an important change that should be made because it is vital that such an important post remains independent of the local health service.
Let me quote the Law Society briefing that was sent to members of the Committee. The Law Society wanted to delete the whole of subsection (5) and to put in extra safeguards, but I think that our alternative offers a neater way forward. The Law Society says:
The new position of medical examiner is intended as the bridge between the health services and the coroner service. However as the employee of the Primary Care Trust or Local Health Board, the medical examiner would be acting as the filter for the death certificates provided by colleagues in the health service. In that case he is likely to trust the judgement of fellow medical professionals. There could also be pressure from his employer, and the Law Society believes there needs to be stronger checks.
I would not say that there is a danger that the professional integrity of medical could be compromised if they were appointed by the PCTs, who would also be their employersI do not accept that. However, I do believe that the very simple extra safeguard makes a great deal of sense.
The Minister may be a bit battered and bruised from her recent encounter on the Today programme, when she was interviewed alongside Dame Janet Smith. I thought that the Minister was her usual courageous self.

Bridget Prentice: It wasnt me.

Henry Bellingham: Well, a Minister was interviewed alongside Dame Janet Smith, the editor of the Shipman report. Dame Janet made it clear that she was very concerned and unhappy about the post of medical examiner not being independent enough. Although she welcomes the appointment of medical examiners and feels that it is an important part of moving on from the post-Shipman era and using the Bill to update the service, her criticism of the clause was founded on her view that that medical examiners must be independent. Our clause, and its consequential amendment, achieve that aim.

Jennifer Willott: Amendment 116, which is in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge, is trying to achieve a similar aim to that just highlighted by the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk. We share his concerns about the independence of the NHS medical examiner, but we are also looking at the link between senior coroners and medical examiners in their local area.
One of the most important things, which was flagged up by the Coroners Society in its evidence to the Committee, is that by taking away the right for the coroner to be medically trained, so that now they will be only legally trained, a number of coroners feel that it is important that they have that easy access to medical advice. We all welcome the creation of the post of medical examinerit is clearly important. However, because of the importance of the link between the coroners and the medical examiner, it is important that they work closely togetherpreferably co-locatedand have a strong local link.
Our amendment reinforces that local link by ensuring that, before someone is recruited as a medical examiner for a particular area, the local senior coroner has to be consulted so that they have some sort of say in the recruitment. We can then ensure that that working relationship is built into the system. My concern about the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk is that it removes the local ink entirely by giving the recruitment of the medical examiners to the chief coroner.

Henry Bellingham: In consultation with.

Jennifer Willott: Yes. In consultation with the local health board and the PCT. It does the opposite of what our amendment does, which is getting the local senior coroner involved in the recruitment rather than taking it to the level above. It is the local link that will be crucial.
As the hon. Gentleman said, there will be an important role for the medical examiners in improving the death certification process and ensuring that we do not have any recurrence of the Shipman scenario. However, the link between the coroners and the medical examiners is a key omission from the Bill. That issue was also raised by the Justice Committee, which was concerned that that aspect was not sufficiently highlighted. Will the Minister ensure that the local link between the two services is in the Bill?
The hon. Gentleman also raised the independence of medical examiners, which, as he said, has been flagged up by the Law Society. However, it is quite telling that the Medical Protection Society, which represents the interests of doctors, is also deeply concerned about the matter. People from both sides are concerned about whether this ensures enough independence for medical examiners. There have been some instances where coroners have found that their link to the local authority has been problematic when a local authority has been implicated in some way in a death that the coroner is looking into. However, that is raremuch more rare than it would be with the medical examiner and the local NHS, as the NHS is much more often involved in cases that come before the coroners court. This issue needs to be looked into as concerns have been raised by a wide range of people.
There is potential in the Bills drafting for medical examiners to feel isolated within the system. If their funding depends entirely on the local primary care trust or health board and they are not properly tied in with the local coroners system, they could be isolated in difficult cases and struggle with funding. Will the Minister respond to that?
As a Welsh Member of Parliament, like the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth, I understand that local health boards will no longer exist[Interruption.] Sorry; and the hon. Member for Wrexham. I understand that local health boards will no longer exist by the time the Bill becomes law. I am not sure whether that needs to be flagged up.

Bridget Prentice: Now that we know how many Welsh Members we have in the Committee, we will proceed. This is an important debate about the independence of medical examiners. They will be appointed by the primary care trusts and local health boards for the very reasonI hope that this answers the hon. Ladys final concernthat they will then be closely involved with clinical governance teams and establish whether patterns or clusters of deaths, for example, give any cause for concern. They will therefore be able to improve medical provision locally. However, clearly, they will also have to work closely with coroners, not least because of the important role they will play in providing coroners with general medical advice.
The Department of Health has made it clear in its response to the public consultation on improving the process of death certification that primary care trusts and local health boards will involve the local coroner in their arrangements for the appointment of the medical examiner. Therefore, I do not think that we need to put that provision into the Bill, as amendment 116 would do.
On amendments 360 and 361, I agree absolutely that medical examiners need clear lines of accountability, but I am not persuaded that the amendments approach is necessarily the correct one. I do not think that it is appropriate for the chief coroner to be directly involved in the appointment, resourcing or monitoring of medical examiners, but I see the role of the new national medical adviser to the chief coroner as the important bridge between the two. He or she will agree the national job description for medical examiners as well as the protocol setting out the minimum level of scrutiny that medical examiners must complete. The national medical adviser will also contribute to the development of training for medical examiners and have a role in the resolution of any disputes that arise between medical examiners and coroners.
The provision of the medical examiner service against clear standards of service provision will be part of the process of auditing primary care trusts and will be carried out by the Healthcare Commission. I was a little concerned by the comments of the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk about the way that the medical adviser should be appointed. His hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) said in a Westminster Hall debate:
I have seen that Ministers wish to embed medical examiners in primary care trusts. I think that that is the right thing to do, as it will put medical examiners in a position where they can link their role into performance management of primary care providers and commissioners.[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 21 June 2007; Vol. 461, c. 534WH.]
That is exactly the right way forward. We believe that it is vital that the public are confident that the examiners will be able to carry out independent scrutiny. The Bill provides for that in two ways. First, we specify that primary care trusts in England and local health boards in Wales can have no role in how the examiners exercise their professional judgment as medical practitioners. Secondly, we are enabling regulations to specify what is required to demonstrate independence.
We expect that the requirements will include the definition and two important protocols. First, a national protocol will be prepared in consultation with the coroners, the royal medical colleges, the British Medical Association and others setting out the minimum level of scrutiny that must be completed for different combinations of care setting, stated cause of death and circumstance. Secondly, a local protocol agreed by the PCT in consultation with the senior coroner for the area will determine the minimum distance between the medical examiner and a death that he or she is allowed to scrutinise. Distance in that context could refer to the nature of any personal, professional or fiduciary relationship that the examiner and the deceased person might have or the attending doctor or the consultant for whom a hospital-based attending doctor works. The appropriate distance has to be a local matter to reflect the different configuration of the NHS in each community.
Finally, it does not follow that the chief coroner should be head of the medical examiner service. It is the job of coronersand therefore the chief coronerto focus on violent or unnatural deaths and deaths of unknown causes that occur in custody or other state detention. That amounts to 115,000 or so deaths each year where a post mortem is carried out rather than the 350,000 deaths that require no further action. I am not saying that there is not scope for further clarification of the accountability and leadership arrangements for medical examiners at a national level. The Department of Health is actively looking at such matters in the context of the health service, and I hope that by the time we discuss the Bill on Reportcertainly while the Bill is undergoing its parliamentary processI can provide further detail on what the Department of Health envisages in that context. In the meantime, I ask Opposition Members to withdraw the amendment.

Henry Bellingham: I am grateful to the Minister for her explanation of the clause, but I am not satisfied. We are discussing an important part of the Bill and it is essential to have extra safeguards in place. The hon. Lady quoted my hon. Friend the shadow Health Secretary who was talking about how medical examiners would operate on a day-to-day basis, not about their appointment. My argument is that, of course, they will be part of the PCT and will be playing an essential role on a day-to-day basis, working alongside other doctors within the PCT and the local health boards. However, their actual appointment does need to be one stage removed. I am sorry that the Minister cannot go along with us on that, so I shall press amendment 360 to a Division.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

The Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes 9.

Question accordingly negatived.

Jennifer Willott: I beg to move amendment 115, in clause 18, page 9, line 29, at end insert
to the minimum standards as laid down for time to time by the National Medical Adviser to the Chief Coroner,.

Roger Gale: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: New clause 14National medical adviser to the chief coroner
(1) The Secretary of State for Health may appoint a person as the National Medical Adviser to the Chief Coroner.
(2) The Secretary of State for Health must consult the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice before making an appointment under this section..
New clause 15Regulations about training (medical examiners)
(1) The National Medical Adviser to the Chief Coroner, after consulting the Chief Coroner, may, with the consent of the Secretary of State, make regulations about the training of
(a) medical examiners;
(b) medical examiners officers and other staff assisting persons within paragraph (a).
(2) The regulations may (in particular) makes provisions as to
(a) the kind of training to be undertaken;
(b) the amount of training to be undertaken;
(c) the frequency with which it is to be undertaken..
New clause 16Regulations about standards (medical examiners)
The National Medical Adviser to the Chief Coroner, after consulting the Chief Coroner, may, with the consent of the Secretary of State, publish minimum standards relating to the service to be provided by medical examiners..

Jennifer Willott: The amendment and group of new clauses relate specifically to the establishment of a national medical adviser to the chief coroner. The Minister referred to such an appointment in her response to the previous group of amendments, but our proposals would establish a national medical adviser to the chief coroner so that the system of the chief coroner and senior coroners in local areas would be paralleled by a national medical adviser to the chief coroner and a series of medical examiners throughout the country. The two operations would run in parallel.
The establishment of the chief coroner is placed in statute, as are the medical examiners, so I am unclear why the role of a national medical adviser to the chief coroner is the only part of the jigsaw puzzle not in the Bill. In its evidence to the Committee, the Royal Society of Pathologists made it plain that it had been speaking to the Department and was of the understanding that the post would be established. It is clearly worried that it is not mentioned in the Bill, and that the position is not made clear.

Committee suspended for a Division in the House.

On resuming

Jennifer Willott: Why the national medical adviser to the chief coroner is the only role not in the Bill is unclear. The role is critical to how the new system will operate. The amendments and, particularly, the new clauses that we have tabled would establish the post of a national medical adviser and enable the adviser, in consultation with the chief coroner and the Secretary of State, to make regulations around training, staffing levels, service provision and so on that would be expected of the medical advisers, laying out the minimum standards expected of medical examiners and requiring the local PCTs and health boards to fund that minimum level of standards.
The proposed provisions would ensure that training and basic minimum standards were common across the whole of the United Kingdom, tackling some of the problems that the coroner system has experienced up to nowas discussed, the widely varying levels of expenditure, support and what is expected of the system from the local authorities. Establishing the role of national medical adviser, with the power to make regulations regarding those minimum standards, would at least establish medical examiners and ensure that they are not starting out with the handicap that coroners have been experiencing. Given that, all members of the Committee recognise that there are a number of challenges for coroners based on the unevenness of funding and support across the country. It seems a shame to set out a new structure that does not get around some of the difficulties right from the start. The chief coroner will clearly have an important role in managing and ensuring consistency across the country for senior, area and assistant coroners in the various regions. It is critical that the establishment of the medical examiner system should have a similar central figurehead and organisation that is able to ensure the consistency of funding, standards and training across the UK, in parallel with the chief coroner.
It has also been highlighted that, in the same way as medical examiners will be important as a source of advice and support for senior coroners in their local area, the chief coroner will similarly need central medical advice to enable them to fulfil their role in operating the coronial system successfully across the UK as a whole. I would be grateful if the Minister explained why that is the one role not in the Bill, given that it is such a fundamental part of how the system will operate. It seems a strange omission.

Bridget Prentice: I understand the hon. Ladys concerns about the leadership of the medical examiner service, but I do not believe it necessary to have the medical examiner role in the Bill as she has described. That is partly because of what I said in the previous debate about the role of the chief coroner being solely responsible for violent or unnatural deaths, or for deaths from an unknown cause or during state detention and so on. The chief coroner and the senior coroner will not have jurisdiction over natural deaths, so the remit of the medical adviser to the chief coroner ought not to stray into the generality of deaths, except to the extent that I described.
On several occasions, the hon. Lady said that the national medical advisers job is the only one not included in the Bill, but other jobs relating to the chief coroner are not covered, including the legal adviser and some of the training specialists. I would be very concerned by the idea that the chief medical adviser should have a role in setting the regulations and I would not want to look at that at the moment.
The Department of Health will be introducing secondary legislation, as set out in the clauses on death certification, and the role of the national medical adviser in relation to medical examiners will be better defined in that legislation. Our intention is that the national medical adviser will be involved in agreeing protocols on the levels of scrutiny that medical examiners must complete and how medical examiners will interact with coroners, as well as agreeing job descriptions and being consulted on the curriculum for the training that is required. The national medical adviser will also be consulted on disputes that might arise between coroners and medical advisers and on any conflict of views in particular cases.
I ask the hon. Lady not to press her amendments, but if there is a strong feeling in the Committee that the role of the national medical adviser should be included in the Bill, I will certainly consider the issue to see whether it would be appropriate to return to it at a later stage. However, the national medical advisers position does not need to be statutory, and many others in similar circumstances are not. That is why the national medical adviser is not included in the Bill at the moment, but I will not set my face against including them later.

Jennifer Willott: The Ministers comments about the difference between the role of coroners and the remit of the national medical adviser in terms of deaths that are investigated could easily be clarified in the Bill or in regulations. The remit of medical examiners will clearly be significantly broader than that of coroners, but both are included in the Bill, so there is no reason why the national medical adviser could not also be in the Bill. The issue could be clarified in regulations or in whatever way the Minister chooses.
On the regulations, I must confess that I am somewhat bewildered. The chief coroner is to have the ability to lay out training requirements and minimum standards in regulations, and I do not understand why there should be a difference between the chief coroners powers and the national medical advisers powers in that respect. Both have a similar role in overseeing the two parallel parts of the system, and it is somewhat lop-sided for the chief coroner to have powers in one area, when the national medical adviser does not have similar powers.
One of the big issues with the coroners system over the past few decades has been the lack of consistency. One issue flagged up by a number of the witnesses who gave evidence to the Committee was the welcome for an overseeing body in the form of the chief coroner, who would be able to ensure some consistency. It would be a missed opportunity, in setting up the medical examiners system, if we did not ensure that we had a similar central body to ensure consistency across the UK.
However, given the Ministers comments about the ongoing discussions with the Department of Health and the fact that things are still being developed, I am happy not to press the provisions, although I hope that the Minister will come back to us on Report with some progress. If not, we may press the matter to a Division. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 18 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 19

Medical certificate of cause of death

Henry Bellingham: I beg to move amendment 359, in clause 19, page 10, line 43, at end insert
(ca) provision allowing any medical practitioner to notify the coroner of any concern over the circumstances in which a person has died;.

Roger Gale: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 104, in clause 19, page 11, line 3, at end insert
, including an investigation into the drugs the deceased had been taking prior to his or her death;.

Henry Bellingham: The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that all medical practitioners have the right to report their concerns over the death of a patient to the coroner, which would be an extra safeguard in the post-Shipman era. The draft charter for the bereaved entitles the relatives of a deceased person to report their concerns over the circumstances of the death to the coroner. There needs to be a similar right for medical practitioners to convey their concerns to the coroner. As framed, the reporting mechanism to the coroner under the Bill is confined to the attending doctor and the medical examiner. There must be a provision to enable other practitioners, such as nurses or other medical attendants, to make reports about their concerns regarding the death of a patient to the coroner. That is what our amendment is about, and I hope that the Minister will look at it sympathetically and take on board what we have said.
I trouble the Committee briefly with two other concerns that I have on the death certificating process, in particular, death certificates. I raise the case of Doreen Morris, which has been brought to my attention by two local MPs who are concerned with her casemy hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve). Doreen Morris was discovered dead in a badly burnt-out shell of a house, and her body had been totally incinerated. The pathologists could not give a precise cause of death because the body was too badly burnt, but there was a need for the body to be released for burial, which happened about a month after the tragic fire. A suspect was arrested and charged with her murder in the following month. In July, an inquest was opened, but it was adjourned because criminal proceedings had started. In the mean time, a death certificate was issued, and the cause of death on it was recorded as not ascertained. At the trial, the suspect was subsequently acquittedalthough Mr. Justice Scott Baker concluded that Mrs. Morris had been brutally murdered, and that she suffered an incredibly cruel and callous killing.
So there is no doubt about the arson, or whether it was an unlawful killingthe only doubt was about the identity of the culprit. The family was very upset indeed; they wanted closure of the tragic case, and the death certificate to be amended to read unlawful killing, because that undoubtedly was what happened. They wanted closure, but there was a problem, because the coroner had to adjourn the inquest for obvious reasons. The certificate that was issued and sent to the registrar could only state that the cause of death as was known as the time, which is why it had to use the words not ascertained; it was not possible at that stage to give a medical cause. The coroner decided not to resume the inquest because it was impossible to ascertain exactly how Mrs. Morris was killedI believe that it is common practice for the coroner not to resume the inquest in such circumstances; but having said that, there was overwhelming evidence of an unlawful killing.
There are two possible courses of action open. The first is for the inquest to be resumed, which the coroner decided not to do. Even if the inquest had been resumed, the outcome would not have been particularly satisfactory, because the only possible way that the coroner could have gone some distance in satisfying the family would have been to place a correction in the margin of the entryin other words, it would remain that the cause of death was not ascertainable, but in the margin it would read unlawful killing. Alternatively, the family could apply to the High Court, with the consent of the Attorney-General, to have the original inquiry quashed, and have the High Court direct the coroner to carry out a new inquest. Getting the support of the Attorney-General and going through the whole process would be incredibly time-consuming and difficult.
In fact, as the Minister knowssomeone wrote to her about the casethe Attorney-General examined the case carefully. A letter from the Attorney-General dated 21 October 2008 says that it is for her to determine, based on the material provided, whether it is desirable in the interests of justice that an inquest should be held. She said that in this case, there is no issue over the identity of the deceased or where or when the bereaved persons mother died, and that the question of how is normally interpreted narrowly to mean the cause of death. She goes on to say that, regrettably, there was no evidence at the time and there remains none as to the exact medical cause of death. She said that, none the less, that does not prevent a coroner from making a finding that the deceased had been unlawfully killed, providing he is satisfied about the matter beyond reasonable doubt. The Attorney-General held out a chink of hope, but decided not to give consent for the family to go to the High Court.
We are not talking about the odd case. I have obtained a copy of the Home Office statistical bulletin, supplementary volume two, on crime in England and Wales 2006-07, dated 31 January 2008. Tables 102, 103 and 109 respectively show that in the 12 years to 2006-07, 1,353 offences initially recorded as homicide currently have no suspect; the apparent method of killing is not known in 477 offences currently recorded as homicide; and 2,228 suspects were indicted for homicide when the outcome of proceedings did not result in a conviction for that offence. Over the 12-year period, there were a total of 4,058 cases in the categories that I extracted from table 102 of the bulletin out of a total of 8,671 cases currently recorded as homicides over the same period. In other words, just less than half current recorded homicides have the potential to give rise to the situation that I am talking about.
The matter is of public interest and concern. I have not tabled an amendment yet, but I reserve the right to do so on Report. The Minister must look at the matter, which is of great concern to families. It was raised in the evidence-taking sessions at the beginning of the Committee, when I asked AndrÃ(c) Rebello and Professor Furness about changing the death certificate. Professor Furness said:
In future, the certificate would not be issued until the relatives have had the opportunity to discuss it with the medical examiner. One of the key questions the medical examiner will be expected to put to the relatives is whether anything on the proposed death certificate is a concern.
The Bill is going some way to sorting out that particular problem. AndrÃ(c) Rebello then said:
What I would do in those circumstances is hold an inquest after ordering the post mortem and before getting the result. I would then use the result to conclude the inquest, and a new death certificate would supersede the old one.[Official Report, Coroners and Justice Public Bill Committee, 3 February 2009; c. 55, Q119.]
That would work if criminal proceedings did not intervene, but it would not work if the inquest were adjourned because of criminal proceedings. I would be grateful if the Minister took a close look at the matter.
I have another concern based on a case that, again, I have had permission to raise from the family involved. Sue Willis wrote to me from Pilton in Somerset. Her husband, John, a reasonably young, incredibly fit and active man, was admitted to hospital on 17 March last year with a suspected inflamed gall bladder. They could not discover what was wrong with John, and his health went downhill rapidly. On his 16th day in hospital, he tragically lost his battle for life. What happened next? Sue Willis wrote:
I was informed that I was required to register my Husbands death within a few days. To my surprise I was immediately issued with a death certificate despite the fact that the cause of death had not been established. I asked my Husbands consultant about this and he informed me that, in such circumstances, it was general practice to put their best guess on the death certificate to expedite the funeral arrangements...In our case, their best guess turned out to be completely inaccurate. The death certificate stated a heart condition as the main cause of death however the post-mortem revealed it to be a Large B cell Lymphoma. I approached the registrars at Southmead Hospital to request an amended death certificate and was provided with almost the same certificate stating the incorrect cause of death with a small annotation noting the post mortem result
in a column at the bottom of the certificate.
Sue Willis wrote to her MP and various other people. The Home Office Identity and Passport Service wrote back to her, stating:
I appreciate that the circumstances surrounding your late-husbands death have been distressing. As far as the registration is concerned everything has been carried out in accordance with statute. The marginal note at the foot of the registration, which is repeated on any certificates issued, shows that following post-mortem without inquest the cause of death was found to be large B-cell lymphoma.
That note has been put in the margin, but the certificate puts down the cause of death as the result of a heart attack in hospital.
This is a severe and serious problem that the Minister must address. I appreciate the difficulties regarding death certificates, but I want to ask how often medical practitioners use the best-guess formula. In the future, medical examiners will be appointed, and presumably the chances of best guesses being put on the certificate will be greatly reduced. A medical examiner will want to look at the matter, investigate it and talk to the familyI am probably making the Ministers case for her. However, there might still be the odd case where the certificate gives the wrong cause of death, a subsequent post-mortem indicates the exact cause of death and the family are distressed.
Regarding large B-cell lymphoma, what will happen in one or two future generations time when the relatives of John want to check medical conditions?

Tim Boswell: Does my hon. Friend agree that that matter might be of some concern to an insurance company?

Henry Bellingham: That is a very good point. I am thinking perhaps of Johns grandchildren who will certainly want to check their DNA framework and look for any history of medical illness. The first thing that they will do is look at the death certificate and although they might see the note in the margin, they will look primarily at the principal cause of death on the certificate. I hope that the Minister will address that case, which I have been given leave to mention by the family.
I also hope that the Minister will look at the point about death certificates and at the other case involving Doreen Morris, the correspondence that has flowed from that and the cumbersome process that is currently available to a family. Families must persuade the coroner to reopen the inquest, and it would be rare for that to happen when there has been a criminal trial and no new evidence has come to light. Going to the High Court requires the consent of the Attorney-General, and perhaps we could make that process more family-friendly. There could be something in the charter for the bereaved to address that. Either way, the ongoing problem illustrated by those two cases will be carried into the Bill unless something is done.

Tim Boswell: Briefly, I am sensitive to the points made eloquently by my hon. Friend. I suspect that there is a wide variation in practice relating to death certificates and the certification of the medical causes of death, not least because those will often be multiple and the hierarchy of the symptoms will not necessarily be clear.
I touched on this point when I intervened on my hon. Friend about insurance. If we are considering systemic illnesses of an occupational or other natureI use mesothelioma as an example, although not necessarily conclusivelyit is important to have full and accurate reporting on a consistent basis, so that we can get an idea about the incidence of such things.
With respect to everyone, the Minister included, I do not think that the Committee is able or medically qualified to systematise everything in terms of medical reporting. However, it is important for us to try to get a better understanding of practice, and I hope that the chief medical examiner will lead on that.
I was amazed by the reticence of my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk on amendment 359, which I have signed, and I wonder whether it goes far enough. In suspicious circumstancesfor shorthand let us call them Shipman-like circumstancesit enables any medical practitioner to notify the coroner of any concern over the circumstances in which a person died. I have revisited that matter, and it occurs to me that that might not cover the full range of people. Medical practitioner could include professions allied to medicine, and perhaps the Minister will comment on that.
Could somebody who cares for, or has regular dealings with, the person, and who has reasons to enter any reservations, make them to the coroner? No doubt it happens from time to time that somebody writes anonymously or from cold to the coroner saying, I dont like what Ive seen, or I think I know something about this, and no doubt they could be called as a witness at the inquest. Some might also have dealings with the police. However, I wonder whether it is possible to extend the very modest terms of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk, which I support, at least to include circumstances in which somebody else who was close to the patienta carer, for examplefelt that something was wrong.

Bridget Prentice: I have no problem with the proposition underpinning the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk. If a medical practitioner suspects, or has reason to believe, that a person died a violent or unnatural death, or that the cause of death is uncertain, we would, of course, want the case referred immediately to a coroner for further investigation. However, I suggest to him that his amendment is unnecessary, because under clause 17(1), the
Lord Chancellor may make regulations requiring a registered medical practitioner, in prescribed cases or circumstances, to notify a senior coroner of a death of which the practitioner is aware.
Essentially, that covers that same ground as his amendment. Also, it covers the variety of people who could be described as medical practitioners, whether nurses, doctors or so on.
I shall turn briefly to the two cases mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. Medical practitioners can take their concerns to the coroner, as indeed can anyone else, including the family or registrarI think that that is what the hon. Member for Daventry was alluding to; they would be covered, too. The reformed appeal system will obviously help in at least one of the cases raised by the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk by allowing the family to appeal to the chief coroner to look at the inquest again. Also, as of 1 January this yearI realise that that came after the cases that he has raisedthe registration provisions have been amended to allow fresh registration after a coroners adjournment for criminal proceedings. Since 1 January, such cases can return to the coroner and be registered.
Clause 19(1)(c) provides for an attending practitioner to issue a fresh certificate if invited to do so by the medical examiner. The cases mentioned by the hon. Gentleman are excellent examples of when that could happen. If he wishes, I shall reconsider those casesobviously the families concerned need closure, having suffered great lossto see whether we can do anything to help to rectify their situations in the meantime. I recognise his comments about future generations looking at death certificates for their own health reasons and so on. However, I think that the provisions introduced this year, as well as the appeals system under the new regulations, should ensure that those in such situations will have some form of redress in the future.

Brian Iddon: I want to discuss amendment 104, which would add to subsection (1)(e) the words
including an investigation into the drugs the deceased had been taking prior to his or her death.
One of the reasons why we are here today is that Dr. Shipman could write anything on death certificates to hide the truth about the murders that he perpetrated with controlled drugs, which were readily available to him. Dame Janet Smith has written extensively on that. Since her report came out, controls have been tightened on the storage and prescription of drugs such as heroin and morphine.
However, I am still concerned about doctors writing death certificates without investigating the cause of death adequately. I therefore strongly welcome the fact that medical examiners will undertake that duty. It is my understanding from the Bill and the explanatory notes that the medical examiner will not only examine the medical notes and perhaps talk to some of the medical staff, but talk to the family, relatives and friends to get to the bottom of what caused a persons death.
My amendment refers not only to prescription-only medicines but to over-the-counter medicines, controlled drugs available on the street and, indeed, alcohol and other substances, all of which can play an important role in a persons death. Anecdotal stories have come to me in my role as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on drugs misuse, such as that if a heroin addict is found in the streetnot all, but most people sleeping rough take drugs of one kind or anotherthe real cause of death will probably be ascertained and recorded properly on the death certificate as an overdose of heroin. However, if a person in a rather well-to-do household has become a heroin addict, their parents may not want heroin addiction appearing anywhere on the death certificate, and respiratory depression or anything else might appear instead, in which case we cannot get to the root cause of the death of all people.
Not all drugs, of course, come out of a pharmacy. People buy them on the street, where they are often contaminated. Some heroin is purer than other heroin. I also refer to internet sale, which is becoming a bigger nuisance than ever. Some 10 per cent. of all medicines obtained on the internet are counterfeit, so people who take them do not have a clue what they are takingit might be Viagra, but it could be anything else. The same applies to medicines available from certain pharmacies on the internet. I am not saying that all internet pharmacies are bad. Some are highly regulated, particularly in Britain, but if a person has been abroad, it is certainly another story.
In care settings, it is not unknownin fact, there have been several casesfor medical staff, including nurses, to overdose patientsgenerally older patients or patients who are vulnerable in some other waywith medicines. That has happened in hospitals and residential homes, as right hon. and hon. Members know. I am therefore pleased that the medical examiners will be able to talk to people and perhaps ascertain the real cause of death.
There are other reasons why I am interested in proper medical certificates and an investigation into the drugs that a person may have been taking immediately or perhaps some time before their death. One of them is that the national programme on substance abuse deaths, which is based in the centre for addiction studies at St. Georges hospital medical school here in London, has been collecting and publishing data on drug-related deaths for several years now from all the coroners jurisdictions across Britain. I have a copy of one of those reports, Drug-related deaths as reported by coroners in England and Wales.
Those reports are extremely useful to the national treatment agency and to others involved in the misuse of drugsthey are interesting to mebecause they show the rapidly changing scene in the illicit drug market. Perhaps Peterborough is a hot spot today; next year it may be Blackpool. The reports show which towns and cities across England and Wales have the greatest drug misuse problems by recording such information. However, it was difficult for St. Georges hospital to start collecting the material, partly because coroners did not originally comply with requests, although that has now been overcome, but mainly because the death certificates have not always been accurate, as I have already explained.
The second reason why it is important to know the real cause of death and whether drugs, illicit or otherwise, were involvedthat is often difficult to get to the bottom of, because such activities can be covert, as I shall explainis that epidemiologists look at death certificates as well, and they, too, are interested in trends of why people are dying and what is causing those deaths.

Tim Boswell: I want to reinforce the hon. Gentlemans comment by reporting some correspondence that I received this weekend from a constituent who is concerned about ketamine abusethe first time that I had ever heard of the phenomenon. Ketamine is a class C drug, and my constituent has asked me to make representations to the Home Office about that. My constituent makes the point that the use of ketamine is now prevalent in, for example, my market towns and, in terms of her daughters health, it is extremely damaging. I suspect that if, sadly, her daughter were to lose her life as a result, it would be so diffuse and difficult to pin down ketamine as the underlying cause of the medical presentation and cause of death that it would probably never be picked up by anyone.

Brian Iddon: I accept that it is often difficult to get to the bottom of the real cause of death.
As I have said, I am chairman of the all-party parliamentary drugs misuse group, which has just published an interesting report on physical dependence and/or addiction to over-the-counter medicines, which one can buy by walking into a chemists shop, and to prescription drugs. The main body of evidence concerns benzodiazepine misuse. However, let me stick to codeine-based products, which are the commonest that can be bought in a shopsome of them have plus or extra at the end of their names and are vigorously advertised on television.
In the evidence that we have collected, we have come across patients taking between 30 and 70 analgesic or anti-inflammatory tablets. I do not want to mention any brand names, but they are in our report. A lot of the substances are co-medications, by which I mean codeine at a fairly high dose level12.5 mg per tablet, which is higher than the normal dose in other productsis co-medicated with other medicines such as ibuprofen. The United Nations international narcotics board has already highlighted in its reports that the misuse of over-the-counter and prescription medicines is now exceeding the abuse of controlled drugs, such as heroin, cocaine and the others, which is a remarkable statement. When the United Nations say that, it is getting serious.
The United Nations also says that, by taking enough codeine, the same buzz can be obtained legally, at a much cheaper price than buying heroin illegally on the street. However, the problem is that quite a lot of tablets have to be taken to get that buzz. If taking ibuprofen at the same time, the inevitability is that someone will suffer serious gastro-intestinal bleeding leading to death. Unfortunately, such activities are covert. The wife in a family may be doing that, unknown to children and husband, and they may suddenly die at quite a young age. It is important that we look into those problems in more detail than ever before.
I also want to mention poly-drug use. Let us say that someone is taking cocaine at the same time as drinking considerable volumes of alcohol. They may be on other substances as well, which complicates the issue even further. However, just cocaine and alcohol will produce a very toxic material called cocaethylene. If no one asks whether the person was drinking alcohol or what they were doing in the night or week before they died, those problems may not be picked up by doctors, the medical examiner or the coroners.
The analysis of drugs is very easy. It need not even be intrusive. One can cut off a piece of a persons hair, subject it to a chemical process called mass spectrometry and readily find out which drugs are in that sample of hair. One can go further, of course, and use body fluids such as blood.
The Samaritans has sent a second document to the Committee picking up that problem:
Some relatively important items are often not recorded, e.g. contact with psychiatric services, date of last contact with GP, blood levels for drug overdoses, source of drugs taken in overdoses
and so on. It strongly recommends
the development of further measures which could improve the development of data collection for the purpose of informing research and strengthening suicide prevention strategies.
I look forward to hearing what my hon. Friend the Minister has to say in response to the amendment.

Bridget Prentice: It is with trepidation that I rise to speak following my hon. Friend, who has given the Committee very detailed information on some of the serious problems that people around the country have in taking medication, whether legal or otherwise. I commend what he and his all-party group do in highlighting those problems and not only raising them in this debate but bringing them to the attention of the wider public.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East is right that the information included by the attending practitioners on medical certificates of cause of death is an important source of data for a number of organisations, partly because it will give us more information about mortality rates generally associated with particular diseases, but also because it will be invaluable to people such as clinicians, to those responsible for planning and managing health services, to the general populationnot just the relatives of those who have died, but those who could be at risk of specific diseasesand to people such as my hon. Friend and the all-party group, who can then do further research in these areas in order to help to persuade the Government on how best to tackle those problems.
The introduction of scrutiny of the cause of death by medical examiners will, I believe, lead to a significant improvement in the quantity, quality and consistency of the data on the death certificate. The inquiries undertaken by medical examiners when they are undertaking medical scrutiny will reflect different combinations of care setting, stated cause of death and circumstance, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East has referred to. That will include discussions about the medical history and other relevant information, such as what the person had been doing, who they had been associating with and so on, including any medication that they had taken before death. It would not be appropriate, therefore, to highlight any single element of those inquiries in the Bill.
I hope that I can reassure my hon. Friend by saying that if a death has resulted from the misuse of drugs or illicit drug use, it would almost certainly be reportable to a coroner, in which case the coroner could obviously call for a post-mortem. Then the coroner, not the medical examiner, would ensure that all the conditions and events that contributed to the death are properly recorded. The medical examiner, of course, could recommend to the coroner the types of examinations, such as a full toxicology report to establish the substances in the body. I hope that the Bill, which gives both medical examiners and coroners the power to investigate further on a much wider spectrum, will give my hon. Friend some reassurance.

Henry Bellingham: I am grateful for the Ministers response. I look forward to hearing from her in writing about the two tragic cases that I mentioned, and I commend her on the way in which she responded to them. The Bill will go a long way to sorting out some of the problems that have arisen, although it might not solve the immediate problems faced by the families. Hopefully, she will consider my comments and will come back to me with some ideas on how to address the situation. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 19 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 20

Investigations concerning treasure

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Roger Gale: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: new clause 1Coroner for treasure and assistant coroners for treasure
(1) The Lord Chancellor may appoint a coroner, to be known as the Coroner for Treasure.
(2) The Chief Coroner may designate one or more assistant coroners to act as Assistant Coroners for Treasure.
(3) The Lord Chancellor may by regulations make provision in relation to the Coroner for Treasure and Assistant Coroners for Treasure..
New clause 2Investigations in relation to treasure
(1) The Coroner for Treasure must conduct an investigation in relation to an object in respect of which notification is given under section 8(1) or 8A(1) of the Treasure Act 1996 (c. 24) (but this is subject to section [Exception to duty to investigate]).
(2) The Coroner for Treasure may conduct an investigation in relation to an object which he has reason to suspect is treasure and in respect of which notification has not been given under section 8(1) or 8A(1) of that Act (but this is subject to section 38).
(3) The purpose of an investigation in relation to an object under this section is to ascertain
(a) whether the object is treasure, and
(b) if it is treasure, who found it, where it was found and when it was found.
(4) Senior coroners, area coroners and assistant coroners are to have no functions in relation to objects which are or may be treasure (but this is subject to any provision which may be made by regulations under section [Coroner for treasure and assistant coroners for treasure] which enables an assistant coroner acting as an Assistant Coroner for Treasure to perform functions of the Coroner for Treasure)..
New clause 3Inquests in relation to treasure
(1) The Coroner for Treasure may, as part of an investigation in relation to an object under section [Investigations in relation to treasure], hold an inquest in relation to the object.
(2) Such an inquest must be held without a jury..
New clause 4Outcome of investigations in relation to treasure
(1) After considering the evidence in the case of an investigation in relation to an object under section [Investigations in relation to treasure] which is conducted without an inquest, the Coroner for Treasure must make a determination as to the matters mentioned in subsection (3)(a) and (where applicable) (3)(b) of that section.
(2) After hearing the evidence in the case of an investigation in relation to an object under section [Investigations in relation to treasure] which is conducted with an inquest, the Coroner for Treasure must make a determination as to the matters mentioned in subsection (3)(a) and (where applicable) (3)(b) of that section..
New clause 5Exception to duty to investigate
(1) This section applies where
(a) the Coroner for Treasure is conducting, or proposes to conduct, an investigation in relation to an object under section [Investigations in relation to treasure], and
(b) if the object were in fact treasure, it would vest in the Crown by virtue of section 4(1)(b) of the Treasure Act 1996 (c. 24).
(2) The Secretary of State may give notice in writing to the Coroner for Treasure that he would not wish the object, if it were in fact treasure, to vest in the Crown.
(3) Such a notice may be given only before the making of a determination under section [Outcome of investigations in relation to treasure].
(4) Where such a notice is given
(a) it is to be treated as disclaiming any title that the Crown may have to the object,
(b) the object is to be treated as not having vested in the Crown under the Treasure Act 1996,
(c) the Coroner for Treasure may not conduct an investigation in relation to the object under section [Investigations in relation to treasure] or (as the case may be) continue with such an investigation, and
(d) without prejudice to the interests or rights of others, the object may be delivered to any person in accordance with a code of practice published under section 11 of the Treasure Act 1996..
New clause 6Codes of practice under the Treasure Act 1996
(1) A code of practice under section 11 of the Treasure Act 1996 may make provision in relation to objects in respect of which notice is given under section [Exception to duty to investigate](2).
(2) No civil liability on the part of the Coroner for Treasure arises where he delivers any object, or takes any other action, in accordance with a code of practice under section 11 of that Act..
New clause 7Amendments of the Treasure Act 1996
The Lord Chancellor may by regulations make amendments to the Treasure Act 1996 in connection with investigations etc..
New clause 33Amendment of Treasure Act 1996
After section 8 of the Treasure Act 1996 (c. 24), insert
8A Duty to notify coroner of acquisition of certain objects
(1) A person who
(a) acquires property in an object, and
(b) believes or has reasonable grounds for believing
(i) that the object is treasure, and
(ii) that notification in respect of the object has not been given under section 8(1) of this subsection,
must notify the Coroner for Treasure before the end of the notice period.
(2) The notice period is fourteen days beginning with
(a) the day after he acquires property in the object; or
(b) if later, the day on which he first believes or has reason to believe
(i) that the object is treasure; and
(ii) that notification in respect of the object has not been given under section 8(1) or subsection (1) of this section.
(3) Any person who fails to comply with subsection (1) is guilty of an offence if
(a) notification in respect of the object has not been given under section 8(1) or subsection (1) of this section; and
(b) there has been no investigation in relation to the object.
(4) Any person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to
(a) imprisonment for a term not exceeding the relevant maximum;
(b) a fine of an amount not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale; or
(c) both.
(5) In proceedings for an offence under this section, it is a defence for the defendant to show he had, and has continued to have, a reasonable excuse for failing to notify the Coroner for Treasure.
(6) If the office of Coroner for Treasure is vacant, notification under subsection (1) must be given to the Chief Coroner.
(7) In determining for the purposes of this section whether a person has acquired property in an object, section 4 is to be disregarded.
(8) In this section investigation means an investigation under section [Investigations in relation to treasure] of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.
8B Duty to deliver object to coroner
(1) Where the Coroner for Treasure is conducting, or proposes to conduct, an investigation in relation to an object under section [Investigations in relation to treasure] of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, he may direct a person who has control of the object to deliver the object to a designated person before the end of the period of fourteen days beginning with the day after the direction is given to him.
(2) Any person who fails to comply with a direction under subsection (1) is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to
(a) imprisonment for a term not exceeding the relevant maximum;
(b) a fine of an amount not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale; or
(c) both.
(3) In proceedings for an offence under this section, it is a defence for the defendant to show he had, and has continued to have, a reasonable excuse for failing to comply with the direction.
(4) For the purposes of this section a person has control of an object if he has possession, or a right to possession, of it; and in determining for those purposes whether a person has a right to possession of an object, section 4 is to be disregarded.
(5) In this section designated person means a person designated in a code of practice under section 11.
8C Offences: further provision
(1) Proceedings for an offence under section 8, 8A or 8B may be brought within the period of six months from the date on which evidence sufficient in the opinion of the prosecutor to warrant the proceedings came to his knowledge; but no such proceedings may be brought by virtue of this subsection more than three years after the commission of the offence.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)
(a) a certificate signed by or on behalf of the prosecutor and stating the date on which evidence sufficient in his opinion to warrant the proceedings came to his knowledge shall be conclusive evidence of that fact; and
(b) a certificate stating that matter and purporting to be so signed shall be deemed to be so signed unless the contrary is proved.
(3) For the purposes of sections 8A and 8B the relevant maximum is
(a) in England and Wales, 51 weeks;
(b) in Northern Ireland, three months.
(4) In relation to an offence committed before the commencement of paragraph 48 of Schedule 26 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (c. 44), the reference in subsection (3)(a) to 51 weeks is to be read as a reference to three months..

Henry Bellingham: This is an extremely important clause, and it would be made a great deal more effective by the new clauses that we have tabled. They would, in effect, bring back the proposal to set up a coroner for treasure that was contained in the original draft Bill.
I shall provide some background and history, because it might be of interest to the Committee. The Treasure Act 1996 provided a new definition of finds that must be reported to coroners as treasure, and which are then offered to museums to acquire. This process has turned out to be very successful: before 1996 there were roughly 25 finds a year, but last year there were 804, in 2007 there were about 700, and in 2006 there were 600. In other words, a large number of finds are being reported that were not reported previously.
The new system is working well. For example, in my constituency, a few years ago, some Iron Age gold torcs were found in and around a village called Snettisham. That gave rise to a great deal of local publicity as they were worth a huge amount of money and are now in Norwich museum. That was a major local event that obviously brought a great deal of money to the finder and owner of the land on which the torcs were found. In practice, most reported finds are sent on to the finds liaison officers of the portable antiquities scheme, who liaise with the British Museum, whose staff then write a report.
The coroners hold an inquest into finds wanted by museums. In 2007, I understand, fewer than 300 cases went to an inquest. Often, the inquest is a small paper exercise, and a major inquest will only take place if there is a dispute with the museum. The remaining cases are disclaimed and the objects returned to the owner of the land or the finder. However, the truncated inquest process still takes up time. The find will be valued by the Treasure Valuation Committee, and the money split between the landowner and finder.
There is a need for speed. Findersthe metal detectorswhom we see from time to time in fields around our constituencies, are a dedicated bunch of enthusiasts. However, they are often impetuous; they want their money and there is always a temptation to put their finds on eBay and sell them quickly. Unscrupulous metal detectorists may do that, but we hope that they are few in number. The Treasure Act 1996 code of practice states that the reward should be paid within 12 months. For that to happen, coroners need to hold the inquest within 90 days. The problem is that the target is not being achieved. The picture is erratic: for example, in Leicestershire and Rutland the average time taken to hold an inquest is now 49 weeks; in Warwickshire, it is 40.6 weeks; in Northamptonshire, it is 36 weeks; in Wiltshire, it is 39 weeks; and in Norfolk, it is 24.5 weeks. Unfortunately, among the coroners who are slowest at dealing with treasure cases is the one that covers the constituency of the hon. Member for Bridgend. He has two cases outstanding. One has taken three years and 20 weeks, and the other has taken two years and three weeksboth cases are way outside the Treasure Act code.

James Gray: To be fair to the coroner for Bridgend, my hon. Friend is probably being rather unkind. The coroner has a significant problem on his desk. To mention him as being an offender in this matter seems a little unfair.

Henry Bellingham: I was going to make the pointmy hon. Friend has done it for methat it is not the coroners fault. He has been facing huge pressure. That is why we need action. That is why the draft Bill introduced a procedure for setting up a coroner for treasure.
I shall cite some remarks made by the Leader of the House, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), when responding to a debate on coroner reform in February 2006, a debate in which I had the privilege to speak. She said that
treasure trove is an ancient jurisdiction of coroners. Sometimes, such cases can take two to three years to resolve, because treasure trove is always put at the back of the queue and dealt with locally. That does not make sense. We will make one coroner nationally responsible for treasure trove and get that dealt with effectively.[Official Report, 6 February 2006; Vol. 442, c. 613.]
If it was sensible in 2006, why is it not sensible now? What the Government proposed then makes a great deal of sense. There is obviously a need for action, but the draft proposals have been dropped.

Tim Boswell: Does my hon. Friend not think it relevant that to raise money for the Crown in mediaeval days the coroner had a series of obligations, of which inquisitioafter deathwas one? Others, for example matters relating to sanctuary and felons, have fallen away and only this one anomaly is left. It would seem to be common sense, particularly if it is a military inquest or if there are other foci of death, to transfer that particular specialist function to a person appointed for the task.

Henry Bellingham: I agree with my hon. Friend entirely. 
The Minister suggests that one way to deal with the problem is through the transfer of cases. In fact, if one examines what she says, it seems that cases should be transferred, taken from those coroners who are slow and given to the more efficient ones. A coroner may be under huge pressure, which is made worse and added to by the number of treasure cases. Is it sensible for those cases to be passed to another coroner? Who will pay the costs of the transfer? The costs will obviously fall on the local authoritys shoulders; it will be far from pleased.
The costs of setting up a coroner for treasure would not be significant. I am indebted to the British Museum for coming up with some figures. It has worked out that the cost of setting up a dedicated coroner for treasure would be between £212,000 and £258,000 a year. A middle figure would put it at about £225,000 a year. That is a significant sum, but it is nevertheless only a small percentage of the cost of the changes entailed in the Bill.
On the other hand, there will be substantial savings if the work is moved from local coroners areas to a national coroner for treasure. The British Museum has come up with detailed figures. I will not go through the method of calculation, but it considered the number of inquests, the number of treasure inquests and the number of treasure inquests as a percentage of the total. The British Museum has worked out that the net savings based on a part-time coroner for treasure would be about £400,000. If the coroner were full-time, the savings would be slightly less. In other words, if we moved those cases away from the counties and from the jurisdiction of the senior coroners and put them in the hands of a dedicated national coroner for treasure, we would save a substantial amount of money. Even on those figures, the scheme would be entirely self-funding and cost-neutral.
I suggest that there is even an argument for going further still. This may be controversialwe want to consult on itbut I feel that there is an argument for saying to the metal detecting community, Look, youre out there making fascinating finds. Its in your interest to get paid as quickly as possible. In fact, only a couple of months ago, a local metal detector found a mediaeval necklace in a field adjacent to where I live that was valued at £20,000. It is a substantial amount; I was sad that it was not over the boundary. That find is, obviously, of great benefit to the finder. I would have thought that a small levy of 15 per cent. of the value of a find would not be that unpopular with the metal detecting community.
If we had a small levy in place, consider how much money it would bring in. For example, there were 804 finds in 2008. The average value was £2,000. The total was £1.6 million, so 15 per cent. of that would be roughly £250,000. If we want to make the scheme totally self-financingindeed, to bring in extra money and perhaps give the coroner for treasure extra resourcesa small levy might be a good way to move forward. I am not saying that we will definitely do so, or table an amendment to do so, but a consultation on the idea might make a lot of sense.
It is important that we consider the other part of the Bill that has been removed. It is of concern to me and to certain organisations. It is important that people are encouraged to report finds. What happens at the moment, generally, is that people report their finds, but new clauses 1 to 7, which I tabled, would basically reintroduce the scheme for establishing a national coroner for treasure.
There are other problems as well. Three other important measures are excluded from the Bill that were in the original draft. One was the obligation of anyone who comes into possession of treasure to report finds of treasure. That is meant to cover the eBay point. As I understand it, a small number of finds end up on eBay and are sold. The handlers of those particular items are not committing any offence, nor can they be pursued in any way, shape or form. If we put that measure back into the Bill, as new clause 33 would do, that point would be addressed.
Furthermore, the other part of new clause 33 would give the coroner powers to require anyone who reports the discovery of a find of treasure to deliver it to the coroner. At the moment, the duty in the Treasure Act 1996 simply requires finders to report their findings to the coroner; they can, in theory, refuse to deliver them. New clause 33 would also allow more time for prosecutions under the Treasure Act 1996 to be brought. At the moment, there is a limitation of six months. We think that that is inadequate. I agree with the draft Bill that that period needs to be extended.
The original proposals for setting up a coroner for treasure have the support of a lot of organisationsobviously, the British Museum, as well as the Institute of Archaeology, University college London, the Society of Antiquaries of London, the all-party archaeological group and the National Council for Metal Detecting. They are keen that the original proposals under the draft Bill should go ahead. I hope that I have made a strong case. It has been put to us by several organisations, and I am particularly indebted to the British Museum for its briefing.
It is not asking too much to question the Government about why they removed from the draft Bill such excellent proposals and to suggest that we could make matters self-financing. I entirely take on board the Ministers point that we do not want to burden her Ministrys budget at a time when budgets are under huge pressure, but if we can win the argument about the scheme being cost-neutral and top it up perhaps with a small levysomething for discussion in the futurewe will have a win-win situation.

Jennifer Willott: I support all the hon. Gentlemans comments, and I have in fact added my name in support of the new clauses. The Governments proposal for a coroner for treasure under the draft Bill was extremely popular. No one opposed it, so it is unclear why it has now been withdrawn. Calculations have shown that such an appointment can be put into practice at low cost, if any cost at all. It might even save significant sums in the long run.
In addition to the points made by the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk, I draw attention to the statute of limitations for prosecutions under the Treasure Act 1996. Prosecutions cannot be taken after six months. Given the delays in many coroners areas for understandable reasons, it means that the inquest would not have taken place by the time the police need to decide whether to prosecute. There have been a couple of cases when the police have not been able to proceed because the inquest had not taken place in time for them to do so. We want a system that works and is effective. We want to encourage people to produce their finds. We want coroners to undertake inquests and to know about the historical artefacts that are found throughout the country. To enable that to take place, we want to make sure that the reverse of what is happening is in practice so that, if someone does not do what they are supposed to do and does not report such matters to the authorities, they can be prosecuted when necessary. Otherwise, the law will not operate effectively. I hope that the Minister can take that point into consideration in her response.

Bridget Prentice: It is tempting to be persuaded by the argument of the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk not least because his proposals are the same as those under the draft Bill. I cannot therefore fault him on their accuracy. Nevertheless, other issues that were in the draft Bill are no longer in the one before us. That might be a matter of regret in some quarters, but the decision to remove the proposal for a coroner for treasure was made on the basis that the annual number of cases is between 600 and 800, only tens of which result in inquests, so it was felt that they could be absorbed in the system.

Edward Garnier: On that basis, clause 11 ought to be excised from the Bill without further argument. The Minister started off with two, and now she is down to one.

Bridget Prentice: That is not quite as persuasive an argument as the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk has just made. I shall leave it there for the moment.
As the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central highlighted, there is concern about treasure cases being delayed. Coroners are dealing with investigations into deaths and other matters. However, the arrangements for investigating treasure cases will benefit from other parts of the Bill. For example, coroners will be able to transfer treasure cases between each other and take advantage of expertise that has been built up, particularly in certain categories of treasure find. Also, the chief coroner will be able to direct a case transfer to avoid delays and backlogs, and take advantage of the expertise of other coroners.

James Gray: While I remain puzzled why the Government removed the idea of a treasures coroner from the Bill, the notion that somehow the difficulty could be answered by shifting a case from one coroner to another ignores the fact that there is no mechanism in the Bill or anywhere else, as far as I am aware, for moving money from one local authority to another to follow a case. How will the Minister compensate the receiving coroner, who could have large numbers of treasure cases arriving at their doorstep?

Bridget Prentice: It would not necessarily be the case that a receiving coroner would get large numbers of cases arriving on their doorstep. The chief coroner would have to direct that, which would be unusual, because it will build up a problem. However, as I said in the Committees evidence-taking sessions, the jurisdiction of the sending coroner would pay the receiving jurisdiction any costs that arise.

Edward Garnier: That would encourage sclerosis, because the sending coroners area, to preserve its budget and save its local authorities money, would build up a backlog rather than send a case out. It is cheaper to build up a backlog than send a case from Norfolk to Leicestershire or vice versa. Although I have listened with great interest to the Minister, nothing that she has said so far seems to undermine the wisdom of the draft Bill, about which she seems to have forgotten.

Bridget Prentice: I certainly have not forgotten about the draft Bill or the wisdom therein. The local authority could, for example, make arrangements for more assistant coroners to be appointed to deal with a backlog. The new clauses are perfectly reasonable, but I should like to point out that there are measures in the Bill that would be helpful as far as treasure is concerned. Obviously, there are difficulties with the current system. We are working with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to amend the Treasure Act 1996 code, and we will consult interested organisations on the implementation of those reforms. We also want the finders of treasure to be confident in the system, and will work towards that in the coming months.
The proposed duty in new clause 33 on any person who acquires a property that they have reason to believe is treasure to notify the coronerit would have been the case even under the draft Billwould be difficult to monitor. Also, coroners could end up being notified of any object belonging to third parties, meaning that they would be unnecessarily inundated with notices of all finds if there is a fear among collectors that they could face criminal prosecution otherwise.
More importantly, coroners are required to determine whether further items of which they are notified are in fact treasure or treasure troves. Those reporting the find after acquiring the object might simply not know, or could claim that they do not know, when or where the object was found. In such cases, the coroner would be required to make a determination without necessarily having appropriate evidence. By contrast, under clause 20(2), a coroner remains able to conduct an investigation concerning an object of which no notification has ever been given, provided that he has reason to suspect that the object is treasure or treasure trove and that it is located within his or her coronial area. Therefore, irrespective whether a find has been reported by a third party, the coroner could still conduct an investigation into the object. It can be argued that it is not necessary to regulate the issue by introducing a statutory duty.
We are aware of the work that the British Museum has been doing with regard to eBay and monitoring potential treasure finds. We will be working with DCMS to find ways of tackling those issues and to educate peopleas the hon. Gentleman suggestedmaking them aware of their obligation to report, by working on the Treasure Act 1996 code.
The proposed duty to deliver objects to a designated person, as directed by the coroner, is unnecessary. There has never been a case under the current system where anyone has refused to hand over an item. If such a situation were to arise, clause 24 in schedule 4, gives the senior coroner the power to demand the production of any items relevant to the investigation for examination or testing that are in the custody or control of the person. Failure to comply with such an order, without reasonable excuse, would result in a fine not exceeding £1,000.
Consequently, the proposed new limitation period for bringing an action under the proposed sections 8A and 8B, including section 8 of the Treasure Act is not required in respect of the coroners jurisdiction.
I am therefore interested in the British Museums analysis of how much this would costit is about two thirds of what our figures suggest that the annual cost of a coroner for treasure would be. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is not a particularly significant sum, although he is, kindly, aware of the budgetary difficulties that we are looking at.
I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw these amendments.

James Gray: The Minister has directed her remarks mainly to new clause 33, and those aspects of the Bill. She has largely ignored new clauses 1 to 7 and the establishment of a coroners treasurer. Leaving aside the question of money, which she has addressed briefly and which is a fairly marginal matter, what does she have to say of the allegation that these provisions which were in the draft Bill were excised from this Bill, not because there is anything wrong with them, but because of a massive cull which removed as much as it possibly could in order to get in things that we do not like, such as data protection and so forth. Is there any proof that civil servants went through the Bill and cut out the bits they thought they could without anyone complaining?

Bridget Prentice: I say categorically that there is no truth whatsoever that civil servants were cutting out bits of the Bill in order to put in bits that people are complaining about, or may otherwise have complained about.

Edward Garnier: In the interests of open government, which I know the Minister is fond ofalthough following the statement from the Secretary of State this afternoon, I rather wonderwill the Minister place in the Library the policy notes that went with the draft Bill in 2006? We could then see the power of the Governments thinking in that year, which recommended the new clauses that my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk has so eloquently addressed the Committee about. Presumably, unless there has been some fundamental blockage of the ministerial teams brain cells, the arguments which were good in 2006 must be good in 2009 and there must be some other reasonperhaps something along the lines that my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire suggested, or that the Minister is about to tell us.

Bridget Prentice: Sadly, I am not going to tell the hon. Gentleman any other good reason as to why the coroner for treasure is not in the Bill at this stage. I ask him to have a read of this document, which sets out the policy reasons behind the decision in 2006. I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment, so that I can check that it is not flawed in any way and so that I may therefore be able to look at it more sympathetically in the future.

Roger Gale: Order. Before we go any further, there is nothing to withdraw because these new clauses have not yet been moved. If, and when, we reach them in the appropriate place in the Bill, the hon. Gentleman may wish to move them formally. We are debating whether clause 20 will stand part of the Bill.

Bridget Prentice: My apologies, Mr. Gale. I have forgotten that there were new clausesI have been concentrating on clause 20.

Henry Bellingham: I can see the Ministers point about new clause 33, that there may well be a number of technical issues around that. But I am still convinced that it would not be difficult to re-insert the principle of establishing a national coroner for treasure into the Bill. The Minister has said that she will look at the costs. I hope that she will come back to me as a matter of urgency, because it is my intention to press new clause 1 to a vote at the appropriate stageif we win that, then we will also have to vote on the other 16 new clauses. Maybe the Minister can prevent that from happening and come up with costs that will run in tandem with those that the British Museum have proposed. Then we can all be happy and re-insert the proposals, which are excellent, into the Bill.

Roger Gale: I have noted that the hon. Gentleman wishes to move new clause 1 formally, and that will be conveyed to Mr. Cook, should he be in the chair when the Committee reaches that point in the deliberations.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 20 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 21 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 2

Coroner areas

Jennifer Willott: I beg to move amendment 119, in schedule 2, page 121, line 11, at end insert
(2A) Each coroner area is to have the same boundaries as each medical examiner area..

Roger Gale: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 126, in schedule 2, page 121, line 26, at end insert
(aa) whichever local authorities are affected by the proposed alterations,.

Jennifer Willott: I shall be brief on this. The two amendments, which are slightly on different issues, are both simple. Amendment 119 is linked to the previous discussion that we had earlier today on ensuring the full co-operation and co-ordinated working between medical examiners and senior coroners. It would make it clear that the medical examiner areas would have the same boundaries as each coroner area. If the boundaries were not the same, it would be more difficult for the medical examiners to co-ordinate their work fully with coroners, and for coroners to be clear as to who it is that they should apply to. [Interruption.]

Roger Gale: Order. I should like to hear the hon. Lady.

Jennifer Willott: It would make it more difficult if there were a number of different medical examiners who a coroner would be liaising with on a regular basis. Amendment 126, which I have also tabled, relates to the situation when the boundaries of coroner areas are changed. The wording of the Bill suggests that currently, the Lord Chancellor must consult the local authorities that he deems appropriate. I am sure that that is the intention, but since it is not clear in the Bill, my amendment clarifies that he must consult the local authorities that are affected by the boundary change. Usually, I would have expected that the Lord Chancellor would do that automatically, but it is not clear in the Bill that that is the requirement. Given that coroner areas are often across different local authority areas, and that any changes could affect multiple local authorities both before and after the change, it seems sensible that it is a requirement that all of those affected should be consulted. Otherwise, it would all be too easy for somebody to be missed out and not noticed.

Alun Michael: I have a couple a points that fit, but not quite in the current contextthey are more related to a stand part debate. I was wondering whether you, Mr. Gale, intend to have a stand part debate on the schedule, or whether it would be helpful if I made those remarks and sought the Ministers response now.

Roger Gale: I am perfectly relaxed about the position. If the right hon. Gentleman would like to treat this as a stand part debate, that is fine by me.

Alun Michael: I am exploring the thinking behind the position in the Bill, which is the continued situation of the location of coroners requirements in local government. I tabled an amendment, which is currently starred, that suggests that the Secretary of State become the relevant authority for each coroner area. The reason is that there is an anomaly that the coroner service is the only judicial service that remains in local government. That leads to a peculiarity in a number of ways because the coroner service and the work of a coroner is judicial in its nature. We will have a situation where local authorities or local police authorities are responsible for the funding and delivering of the service, but have little or no control over costs. National standards will be established and monitored by the chief coroner, and coroners can be removed from office only by the Lord Chancellor. There is a rather odd mixture of local and non-local issues. That fits with the concerns expressed about new clause 19 in an earlier debate regarding situations where there are no unusual circumstances concerning either a particular event or some of the pressures that have arisen from service personnel and so on.
There is always a tension between local and national matters. It has been suggested, for example, that had there been a different deployment of Ministers in the 1940s, we might have ended up with a national education service and a local health service, and there is a tension in both of those between national and local issues. There seem to be anomalies in this matter, and concerns have been expressed by people in local government. That reflects the views expressed by the Justice Committeeof which I am a memberwhich stated that it is difficult to see how a chief coroner could function effectively as a force for standardisation without it being part of a national service. With the reforms, we see councils playing for offices, court accommodation, the training of coroners and staff and a new appeal system. All that is sensible. Most coroners do not have dedicated courts under the present legislation, and there will be pressure to provide those in a reformed system. We are looking for improvements, as is the Minister. The new chief coroner will implement changes that will impact directly on the management of the service by councils and the police, including the transfer of cases between coroners. We have heard about those issues during the course of todays debate. The purpose of that is to avoid backlogs and delays and that is a positive outcome.
My concern is to understand the thinking behind the retention of the local nature of part of the coroner service, when a national focus is given to the standards and oversight. Is this a halfway house? Have we thought about what will happen in the future? Will the Minister set out her case and comment on the observations made by the Justice Committee about the Bill and about the way that we as a Committee consider that the coroner service could be improved by moving towards a consistent service across the country?

Bridget Prentice: I will start by responding to the comments made by the hon. Lady, and then I will comment on what my right hon. Friend has said.
I say to the hon. Lady that the amendments are both impractical and unnecessary. Amendment 119 is impractical because coroners areas are based on local authority areas. Medical examining areas will be dictated by the boundaries of primary care trusts and local health boards, and those are not coterminous. Primary care trusts are accountable to their local communities and to the Secretary of State through the strategic health authorities. In 2005 the Department of Health set out proposals for reconfiguring strategic health authorities and primary care trusts. Although it sought to strengthen relationships between health care and local authorities by bringing the boundaries closer together, it also made it clear that there is no single blueprint for the future shape of PCTs and SHAs. The most important thing is to secure high-quality safe health care services. Therefore, the Department of Health feels that one size cannot fit all and make every boundary exactly the same.

Jennifer Willott: I would like some clarification. The coroner areas are not one local authority area, so local authorities already have to coordinate to ensure that funding is made available to provide a coroner service across those areas. For example, the area that I represent has five constituencies and two local authorities within one coroner area. In Wales, after the reorganisation, there will still be a link between local authority areas and the health boards. In England, there may not be one PCT for one local authority area but the boundaries are pretty much the same. Given that coroner areas are already linking, why can the same not be done for MEs?

Bridget Prentice: In a sense I agree that they can linkthat is the whole pointbut they do not have to be coterminous. It is impractical to try to make each coroner area match a primary care trust area. One can look at it the other way round and say that coroners are appointed and funded by local authorities, whereas the coroner area usually comprises more than one local authority area.
Although coroners and medical examiners will be independent of each other, they will work closely together, as the hon. Lady pointed out. In fact, there will often be several medical examiners serving a particular coroner. The other thing that I should say, which has not come out in debate already, is that while coroners will be predominantly full timecertainly in the future will be full timemost medical examiners will almost always be part time.
Amendment 126 is unnecessary because, if the hon. Lady looks at paragraph 2, schedule 2, the Lord Chancellor, when altering a coroners area, before making an order under that paragraph, must consult
(a) whichever local authorities the Lord Chancellor thinks appropriate,
(b) in the case of a coroner area in Wales, the Welsh Ministers, and
other people that he thinks appropriate. Therefore, when changing coroner area boundaries, he will be consulting the local authorities affected by that change, and that will automatically include those affected by the change, whether they are increasing or decreasing the boundary, so the amendment is unnecessary.
I turn now to my right hon. Friends point about the relationship between local and national. National organisations are not always appropriate for all services, and it might not be as cost-effective a solution as the current systems problems need. The reformed system will have the best features of the national structure, by being headed by a chief coroner, complementing the best features of the local structure and local delivery. I do not think it is appropriate to create a new and unnecessary bureaucracy.
In consultation there was considerable argument for keeping the coronial system local, although people appreciated having the direction and leadership of a chief coroner at a national level. That chief coroner will set and monitor the compliance standards. The charter for the bereaved will contain rules and regulations and there will be an independent inspection system and an appeals system for the first time.

Alun Michael: I will be brief because I do not want to extend the discussion, but it is possible to have a local service as provided by the probation service, for example, without it being a local authority service. I accept that there has to be a local service, but that does not mean that it needs to continue being a local authority service.

Bridget Prentice: My right hon. Friend has made a perfectly valid point. It does not have to be a local authority service, but we did at least two consultations on this policy and local provision was what people wanted. That certainly was the view among many of the bereaved families and organisations that we met.
For that reason, I ask him to accept that it will be a new service with national leadership but all the benefits of a local provision, with a community aspect that the bereaved families that we are putting at the heart of the Bill, as we said earlier, will be able to understand, appreciate and benefit from.

Jennifer Willott: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Clause 22

Appointment etc of senior coroners, area coroners and assistant coroners

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Brian Iddon: I have two simple questions for my hon. Friend the Minister, the first of which concerns the employment rights of coroners. For 10 years I campaigned to change the status of registration officers. They were statutory officers, which meant that they had no formal employer and no formal right to go through any employment legislation, including employment tribunals, if they were considered to be unfairly dismissed.
During many debates in which I tried to convert registration officers so that they would be covered under employment lawsthat came about in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007I learned that coroners were almost certainly statutory officers as well. Are they statutory officers? As such, do they have any rights under the various employment Acts? My second question concerns indemnity for coroners when, for example, their verdicts are challenged by a judicial review. Are they indemnified?

Bridget Prentice: To answer my hon. Friends first question, coroners are office-holders and are judicially independent. We cannot recall an example of one ever having been dismissed, which might open another debate that we will not go into at the moment. They may have rights to compensation under article 1 of the ECHR, but that has never been tested. That is as much as I can advise him on that issue. On the issue of indemnity against judicial review, yes, they will have indemnity. That will be covered in the regulations made under clause 6.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 22 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Roger Gale: Before we embark on schedule 3, which has a lot of amendments, we had better do a little housekeeping. I understand that there is likely to be a Division in the House at about 7.20. Unless somebody leaps to their feet and moves the adjournment, I propose to sit until then and suspend the sitting until 8.30. That will give hon. Members time to vote and eat, quickly; it will not allow for a luxurious dinner. If anybody changes their mind, I would like to know, as I need to let the Officers of the House know.

Schedule 3

Appointment etc of senior coroners, area coroners and assistant coroners

Henry Bellingham: I beg to move amendment 44, in schedule 3, page 123, line 7, leave out relevant authority and insert senior coroner.

Roger Gale: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 46, in schedule 3, page 123, line 10, leave out relevant authority and insert senior coroner.
Amendment 47, in schedule 3, page 123, line 20, leave out 70 and insert 72. Amendment 45, in schedule 3, page 123, line 21, leave out sub-sub-paragraph (b).
Amendment 33, in schedule 3, page 125, line 3, leave out 70 and insert 72.
Amendment 127, in schedule 7, page 134, line 17, leave out or as a Deputy Chief Coroner.
Amendment 36, in schedule 7, page 134, line 19, after second judge, insert or a senior coroner.
Amendment 37, in schedule 7, page 134, line 20, leave out 70 and insert 72.
Amendment 128, in schedule 7, page 134, line 20, at end insert
(1A) To be eligible for appointment as a Deputy Chief Coroner a person must be
(a) a judge of the High Court or a Circuit Judge or a senior coroner, and
(b) under the age of 70..
Amendment 38, in schedule 7, page 134, line 24, leave out 70th and insert 72nd.

Henry Bellingham: I may be able to help you, Mr. Gale. I am confident that with good will and a degree of conciseness, we will be able to finish part 1 by 7.20 pm. Hopefully, we will not have to come back after dinner. I will be brief, because most of the amendments stand in my name and the names of my hon. Friends.
The amendments relate to various matters to do with boundaries, appointments and issues such as retirement age. They are important to the coronial service. It is important to bear it in mind that the office of coroner is one of the oldest in the country; I understand that it dates back to 1420. [Interruption.] I am happy to be corrected by the Minister, or by my hon. Friend, if he can find an earlier or later date.

James Gray: My hon. Friend is completely and utterly wrong. The coroner was founded shortly after William the Conqueror in the 12th century, rather than in the 15th century.

Henry Bellingham: My hon. Friend is quite right, but I understand that the office as it is currently constituted dates from 1420. However, I do not want to get into a long, historical debate or I will be ruled out of order.
The point to bear in mind is that the office is ancient and should only be tampered with lightly. It carries many onerous duties. Those of us who heard what AndrÃ(c) Rebello had to say could only be impressed by his hard work and his total commitment to the job. He made it clear that he was on duty 24/7. He could be rung up at any hour of the day. He said that he was under constant pressure, and pointed out that he was persistently underfunded. He also made it clear that coroners live in constant anticipation of some ghastly local disaster. The office carries pretty poor pay and allowances and is not likely to appeal to everyone. On the other hand, it carries powerthe coroner has the power to summon witnesses to an inquest to give a statementand a great deal of prestige in the local community and among local professions. Many coroners have a civic role, as well, attending the mayor and corporation at civic occasions. What the office of coroner represents is the very best of localism. Many coroners are third or fourth-generation coroners from a particular family, and they take a huge pride in their work. I have spoken to many county coroners and have been incredibly impressed with their total dedication and professionalism. They really pride themselves on the professional service that they can give to the community.
That is why Conservative Members have always been very much in favour of maintaining the best of localism. That is why we support the Ministers decision to put in place a national overarch, the national coroner and the deputy national coroner, but with strong local autonomy under it. However, it is important that the office of senior coroner be truly independent, and the offices under it, the area and assistant area coroners, must be totally independent. That is why our amendments 44 and 46 strike out the provisions in the Bill to give the power of appointment of the area and assistant area coroners to the local authority. That would be a bad move. At the moment the county coroner appoints his deputy and assistant deputy. I put it to the Minister that, if we give the power of appointment of the more junior ranks to the local authority, there may well be possible conflicts of interest.
What, for example, would happen in the scenariounlikely, I accept, but possibleof a local authority falling out with the senior coroner? It could be over resources, the senior coroner demanding facilities or how he has handled a particular inquest. In any event, I suggest that there could be a serious falling out between the local authorityor perhaps the police authorityand the senior coroner. Under the arrangements as envisaged in the Bill, the local authority could say, Right, we are going to appoint an area and assistant area coroner under you whom we know full well you will not be able to work with, thus causing strife and probably leading to the resignation of the coroner.
Our amendments are taking an extreme case, but what the Bill as it stands does is to take away an important task from the senior coronerthe power to appoint his two key deputies. If we are to have a coronial system that works smoothly and well, it is crucial that the senior coroner and his deputies get on well together and work together as a team. That is the essence of amendments 44 and 46.
There is also a need for the office to be properly independent. The Minister mentioned a moment ago that the office, as it stands, contains proper judicial independence. She mentioned that in future, the coroners will be independent. On the other hand, the Bill states clearly that the office of coroner will no longer be a freehold office. Freehold, which I remember from my early days of law, implies a degree of independence. It implies a degree of self-sufficiency and control over ones own destiny. It implies, in this context, judicial independence. To remove the offices statusthe freehold statusand move it over to being an office of the local authority would take away that judicial independence. It would make the coroner a servant of another agency, another authority. It would also imply that, rather than being totally independent, he or she could be controlled by that third party. That would be a very negative move.
Is it not also important to have a proper career structure for coroners? Is it not important that we try to attract the most able, capable people to the post of senior coroner? The Minister has said on a number of occasions that it is important to have the highest calibre men and women applying for the posts. Surely it makes no sense at all for there to be a glass ceiling on the career structure of senior coroners. Why should they not be able to apply for the post of chief coroner or deputy chief coroner? There is no reason why they should not apply for those posts. If they have the necessary qualifications and experience, there is no reason why they should not apply; hence we have tabled amendment 36. It is important that senior coroners do not have a glass ceiling on their career structure and that they are given the opportunity to apply for the top jobs. That is the essence of amendment 36. It is also very important that they retain their current retirement age.

Bridget Prentice: I cannot accept amendments 44 and 46I will manage to find the others in a moment. They run entirely contrary to what we are aiming to achieve in the Bill, which is to create an open, transparent and consistent system for appointing coroners. The system at the moment is largely opaque. It is not uncommonthe hon. Member for North-West Norfolk obliquely referred to thisfor a coroner to appoint as a deputy or an assistant deputy someone from their own legal practice or someone who is otherwise known to them. That, in turn, clearly causes disadvantage to anyone else who might be interested in applying for the post when the senior coroner position becomes vacant if they have not been in that law firm. It also means that vacancies might never be made known to potential candidates who might be better people to fill those vacancies. As well as creating a lack of transparency, it has led in the past to a lack of diversity among those in coroner posts.
It is important that we do all that we can to enable diversity of coroners to reflect the diversity of our society. Having the local authority advertise vacancies, with an agreed and published set of criteria that candidates must meet, is one of the fundamental measures that we take in this part of the Bill. It will allow all potential qualified candidates with an interest to apply and will allow the local authority to select the best person for the job.

George Howarth: The hon. Member for North-West Norfolk made the point that some coroner families are into the fourth generation. Does that not rather make my hon. Friend the Ministers pointor are some people just genetically predisposed to being coroners?

Bridget Prentice: I am not sure that anyone is genetically predisposed to being a coroner, but my right hon. Friend is right to say that the hon. Gentleman did rather make my case for me. Under the new, transparent system, there will be an additional check, in that the chief coroner, who is responsible for ensuring consistent standards throughout the system, and the Lord Chancellor will have to consent to the appointment of all coroners. With that new scrutiny in place, consistency and transparency will become much more apparent. In addition, it will increase public confidence in the system and people will see that the best candidates have been recruited.
I turn to amendments 47 and 33, which deal with increasing the retirement age of coroners from 70 to 72 for which I see no justification. Schedules 3 and 7 set out a new retirement age of 70 for coroners and chief and deputy chief coroners. There is no retirement age at present: the office of coroner is freehold. The introduction of a retirement age will bring consistency with the rest of the judiciary and allow for better succession planning.

James Gray: Is the Minister in favour of introducing a retirement age for Members of Parliament?

Bridget Prentice: It is not entirely relevant, but I am sure that I will retire from this place before the hon. Gentleman does.
Mr. Grayrose

Roger Gale: Order. The hon. Gentleman is now out of order. The question was out of order. I allowed the Minister, perhaps unwisely, to half-answer it, and I would now like to get back to the amendments before us.
Bridget Prenticerose

James Gray: I asked my question to introduce the matter of age limits. The point that I was making in perhaps a frivolous way was that the hon. Ladys argument was that, because of the quasi-judicial position of a coroner, it was therefore reasonable for them to retire at the age of 70. I accept that my point was marginally out of order and that I did not express it well, Mr. Gale, but I wanted to draw attention to the fact that lots of other highly responsible work is undertaken in this country that can be done until the ages of 80, 90 or older. If the hon. Lady is of the view that the work of a coroner requires that the person should retire at the age of 70, why should that not apply to politicians?

Bridget Prentice: To ensure that I stay within order, Mr. Gale, I repeat that we are making the retirement age of coroners consistent with that of the rest of the judiciary. In practice, that will make very little difference at the moment because we shall allow those coroners who are in post to continue for the time being.

Tim Boswell: Will the Minister at least consider the possibility of providing some flexibility or headroom for the future, so that there is a presumed retirement ageshe has selected the age of 70 for consistencybut in particular circumstances and if there was a reason for doing so, it would be possible to continue the appointment for, say, up to a couple or three years? I can imagine there being a local difficulty or a shortage of suitably qualified legal persons for the post. It is exactly the sort of the problem that the High Court had to deal with by drafting back, for example, retired judges to carry out some inquiries.

Bridget Prentice: I do not object to retired judges being brought back into the system for particular reasons on some occasions. There is no reason why that could not continue in the coronial system, too. Nevertheless, most coroners retire voluntarily between the ages of 65 and 70, so it is unnecessary and undesirable to increase the retirement age to 72.
Under the Bill, anyone under 70 who has been legally qualified for five years would be eligible for appointment as a senior coroner, area coroner or assistant coroner. Amendment 45 would remove the requirement for coroners to be legally qualified. In other words, it would allow anyone to be a coroner if they were under the age of 70, even if they had no qualifications. I am sure that that is not what the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk intended by the amendment, so I hope that he feels able to withdraw it.
In future, it will be increasingly important for coroners to be legally qualified. Given the duty of investigations that satisfy article 2, legal qualifications will become even more essential. They will also give the coroners the skill to examine evidence and conduct investigations in the most effective way.
At the moment, a small number of coroners are both medically and legally qualified, and about the same number are medically qualified only. The Coroners Society tells me that there are about four of each. Under the reformed system, it will not be necessary for the coroner to be medically qualified, as the medical examiners will be on hand to provide independent medical expertise. However, those who are currently medically rather than legally qualified will retain their posts under the reformed system and will simply be exempted from the legal qualification requirement. They will already have picked up forensic skills through experience and training, and that is not something that we want to lose.
Amendment 36 deals specifically with eligibility for the appointment of chief coroner and deputy chief coroner. Schedule 7 provides that to be eligible for appointment as chief coroner or deputy chief coroner, the person must be a judge of the High Court or a circuit judge. Amendment 36 would allow a senior coroner to be eligible for appointment as chief coroner or deputy chief coroner. I understand the point made by the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk about the glass ceiling, and I have some sympathy with it. However, in my view, the scope of the job of chief coroner probably requires someone with senior judicial status, such as a High Court judge or a senior circuit judge. To be led by a figure of that stature heightens the profile of the coroner service. When determining complex appeals or negotiating for resources nationally or locally, status can be quite important. I cannot agree that a senior coroner should necessarily be eligible for appointment as chief coroner.
I am more open to the suggestion that a senior coroner should be allowed to become a deputy chief coroner. It is important that we recognise that there will be more than one deputy chief coroner. Amendments 127 and 128 would allow a senior coroner to apply for that role provided that they are under the age of 70. As I said, given the experience of senior coroners who have been working in the system for some time, it is understandable that they might wish to apply for such an appointment and I recognise that their skills should continue to be used in that way. Although I cannot give a firm commitment at this stage to table an amendment on Report, I will certainly reflect carefully on that aspect of the hon. Gentlemans proposals. On that basis, I ask him to withdraw his amendment.

Jennifer Willott: In response to the Ministers comments about deputy chief coroners, this is an important point for senior coroners, who are clearly upset by the suggestion that it is not appropriate for them to progress in their career to become deputy chief coroners.
I want to flag up a couple of points made to me by a coroner of significant years experience who raised a number of concerns from his personal perspective, particularly regarding the suggestion that coroners who operate in the courts do not have the appropriate judicial experience to become a deputy chief coroner. He pointed out to me that he is the part-time president of the Mental Health Tribunal and a part-time chairman of the Appeals Service. He gained considerable experience as an advocate and a solicitor in private practice before becoming a coroner. He has dealt with more than 100 jury inquests and used remote video link and voice distortion equipment. He has dealt with witness intimidation, anonymity and special measures. Those are all matters that coroners deal with daily, just like other members of the judiciary, although coroners are not recognised in the same way as having judicial experience. That is reflected in the Bills current measures.
I understand that the Minister will come back on Report with proposals to make the arrangements fairer, so that senior coroners can progress in their careers, but I would like to flag up one other issue. I understand her point about the chief coroner being a High Court judge, and I know that the Coroners Society believes that, especially at the beginning, the post needs to be held by someone in a significantly high office, so that it is well respected and has the clout to make the necessary changes. However, if the reforms are successful, resulting in improved standardisation and funding across the UK and so on, and if the coroner service is held in higher regard and given more recognition, at some point a very experienced senior coroner with a lot of experience as a deputy chief coroner might be the most appropriate person to become the chief coroner. It seems unwise to rule out that possibility completely, even though I understand that perhaps nobody would wish to take up that option for a while. However, I am glad that she will reconsider the point about the deputy chief coroner, and I look forward to hearing her proposals on Report.

Henry Bellingham: I am grateful to the Minister for giving us some hope that some of the more technical amendments will be considered and that she will return with the necessary changes on Report.
Returning to a point that the Minister made about doctors also serving as coroners, I appreciate that there will be a five-year phasing out period, but it would make sense to have doctors serving as coroners as long as they were told to get at least some basic legal qualification as well. It would be a great pity to exclude doctors completely from the career structure, because they could have a great deal to offer. Perhaps she could reconsider that point, but on the basis of the commitments that she has given, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Henry Bellingham: I beg to move amendment 32, in schedule 3, page 124, line 41, leave out are not and insert will continue.

Roger Gale: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 260, in schedule 3, page 124, line 41, leave out not.

Henry Bellingham: I have already made my points about freehold office, and I would just like the Minister to comment.

Bridget Prentice: All I have to say is that if any member of the public is aware that coroners are freehold office holders, I suspect that very few know what it means. It is an historical throwback and the Bill provides us with an opportunity to remove it. I do not think that by so doing we will undermine coroners independence, which is referred to throughout the Bill. I therefore resist the amendment.

Jennifer Willott: Amendment 260, which is in my name, would do precisely the same thing as the amendment moved by the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk.

Henry Bellingham: I plan to return to this point on Report, because we feel strongly about it. We believe that it goes to the essence of independence. I hope that the Minister will reconsider. She has said on many occasions that she believes in the total independence of the coroners office and the coronial system, and I hope very much that she will reflect on what I have said. We do not want to be too persistent, however, and divide the Committee. However, we do feel strongly and reserve the right to return to the matter. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Jennifer Willott: I beg to move amendment 259, in schedule 3, page 126, line 23, at end add
in accordance with standards and guidance produced by the Chief Coroner.

Roger Gale: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 258, in clause 28, page 14, line 33, leave out may and insert shall.
New clause 28Regulations about senior coroner standards
The Chief Coroner may, from time to time, with the consent of the Lord Chancellor, publish minimum standards relating to the service to be provided by senior coroners..
New clause 29Guidance about salaries and fees
The Chief Coroner may, from time to time, with the consent of the Lord Chancellor, publish guidance for local authorities regarding the level of salary for senior coroners and area coroners, and of fees for assistant coroners..

Jennifer Willott: The amendments and new clauses go together quite well as a group. They are designed to introduce standards for coroners in various ways. Amendment 259 relates to the terms and conditions on coroners; amendment 258 would mean that the coroner must publish regulations on training for senior coroners; new clause 28 would enable the chief coroner to publish minimum standards that should apply to all senior coroners in the UK; and new clause 29 would enable the chief coroner to publish guidance on salaries and fees.
This matter has been raised a number of times already, so I shall be brief. There are concerns about the inconsistencies in the United Kingdom, both on standards of service delivery and on the terms and conditions, salaries, equipment, staffing and support that is provided to coroners by local authorities. The proposals would improve the uniformity of the service that is delivered to bereaved families. New clause 28 would mean that the chief coroner would be able to publish minimum standards by which local authorities would have to be guided when funding officesaccommodation and staffto ensure that coroners have the basic minimum of support that they need to fulfil their jobs. Because those standards would be laid out by the chief coroner, it would not be so much in the hands of local authorities to decide what they believe is appropriate. Instead, a basic minimum standard would be applied, which would help coroners in their dealings with local authorities.
We have already highlighted the issue of training. The Government accept that there is a need for improved consistency in training in the UK to ensure that there is better uniformity in different coroners areas. The Bill states that the chief coroner may publish regulations about training, but amendment 258 would ensure that such guidance is published. Given that we all accept the need for it, it seems somewhat surprising that the Bill enables rather than ensures. That is clearly important for coroners and for all of us.
I accept that the proposal on terms and conditions and on salary guidance is slightly contentious. However, a key issue in some areas is that coroners are not in a strong position when negotiating with local authorities. For example, the area that the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth and I represent is covered by the coroner for Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan, who is employed only on a part-time basis, despite the fact that she works full-time hours. The local authority has decided that it only wants a part-time coroner despite the fact that her work load is far too large. Laying down central standards and guidance for local authorities on salaries and fees would rule out such anomalies. The guidance could take into account such things as the number of inquests, investigations and deaths reported, and the size of an area. It could also consider transfers between areas, and generally take into account a coroners overall work load.
Clearly, the chief coroner is in a much better position to consider such things, because they gather information and can see the bigger picture throughout the UK, whereas local authorities see a very small part of the picture and are not in the best position to make decisions on how much coroners should be paid for how many hours, and what support staff they need to do their jobs. Currently, as we all accept, there is significant inconsistency.
I hope that the four proposals provide a solid basis to enable coroners to do their job with the resources that they need.

Bridget Prentice: I understand that at present, the mechanism for determining coroners salaries nationally is an annual negotiation between the Coroners Society and local government employers on behalf of local authorities. If that arrangement is discontinued, it would be up to the Local Government Association and the Coroners Society to decide what alternative machinery should be put in place. Frankly, they are probably better placed to make the decision, and the Coroners Society should represent coroners interests rather than the chief coroner. I therefore resist the amendment.
On training, subject to the agreement of the Lord Chancellor, the chief coroner will be responsible for setting national standards and ensuring that coroners and those who work with them have the training that they need to meet those standards. There will also be requirements for specialist training in coronial law and, as the hon. Members for Cambridge and for Daventry pointed out in earlier debates, there will be a need for training on the application of the Human Rights Act.
I can assure the hon. Lady that improved training arrangements will be high on the chief coroners list of priorities. I do not think that they would be any higher on the agenda if they were there purely through compulsion. In any event, as an independent judicial appointee, it would not be appropriate for the Government to compel the chief coroner to do any particular thing, however essential we may see it as being.
Finally, new clause 28 would allow the chief coroner to publish minimum standards that coroners must meet after consultation with the Lord Chancellor. That replicates clauses 32 to 34, which already provide for the Lord Chancellor to issue guidance on the services to be delivered to bereaved families. Those of us who have looked at the draft charter know that it includes at paragraph 44 an example of the types of deaths where specific standards might be set. We would therefore expect coroners rules and regulations to deal with such mattersfor example in relation to post-mortems, suspension and resumption of investigations, disclosure of information, the release of bodies for funerals and the operation of the appeals system. Such secondary regulation would have added force.
I hope that on that basis, while much of what the hon. Lady has said about the way the system works is sensible, she will see that it is already covered in the Bill. Those other areas, relating to employment and salary negotiation, are best left to those who will be doing the negotiation.

Jennifer Willott: To clarify, the amendment about salary guidance is not so much about the amount that an individual should be paid, as forums are already in place to deal with that. The issue is more to look at the guidance for what work there is in a particular area and what needs to be funded there. At the moment, although the guidance is provided centrally, it clearly does not work as some areas are significantly underfunded, and the volume of work is far greater than the hours for which the coroners are paid. The system is not operating efficiently at the moment, so the suggestion is that there is a better way to ensure that areas get the resources that they need.

Bridget Prentice: Other parts of the Bill give the chief coroner the powers to look at how local authorities resource the system. Therefore the reports that the chief coroner will be able to make will give them the leverage to deal with the overall resource issue as far as local authorities are concerned.

Jennifer Willott: I tabled the amendments because I am not convinced that the existing powers are strong enough to enable the chief coroner to do that. We clearly agree in this Committee on what the outcome needs to be in terms of adequate funding and the resources to enable coroners to do their job, but we do not necessarily agree on how to achieve that.
My final point concerns minimum standards. I accept that the issue of coroners rules and regulations relates to a lot of their work, but my concern about the publishing of minimum standards is that they relate to work load and so forththe practicalities of running the office and the service that will be delivered to all families that come into contact with that service, rather than the way in which an inquest will operate and so on. There are certain areas that are already covered by the measures in the Bill, but there are areas where it is not clear enough. We shall return to the issue on Report, and I look forward to hearing the Ministers comments then.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Schedule 3 agreed to.

Clause 23

Provision of staff and accommodation

Jennifer Willott: I beg to move amendment 117, in clause 23, page 13, line 36, at end insert
(1A) In making provision under subsection (1), the authority must ensure that the minimum standards laid down from time to time by the Chief Coroner are fulfilled..

Roger Gale: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 261, in clause 23, page 14, line 4, leave out (b) and (c).
Amendment 92, in clause 23, page 14, line 6, at end insert
(4A) A senior coroner may report to the Lord Chancellor any failing by a relevant authority to discharge its duties under subsection (1).
(4B) The Lord Chancellor may from time to time publish guidance about the procedure for resolving any matter of dispute relating to a report made to him pursuant to subsection (4A).
(4C) The Lord Chancellor may give a direction requiring the senior coroner, and the relevant authority to take action within a period specified in the direction to resolve any matter of dispute relating to a report made to him pursuant to subsection (4A)..

Jennifer Willott: This is on similar lines to the previous group, but from the opposite perspective, requiring the local authority to take into account the minimum standards when providing funding.
My concern is that the wording of the clause, as it stands, is vagueit refers to the local authority having to take into account the staff that are needed and adequate accommodation. Clearly that is currently being interpreted extremely widely, as very varied staffing levels and accommodation are provided. I want to clarify that and to get the Ministers response to the duties that will be held by local authorities to ensure that the provision is adequate, as it does not seem to be at the moment. She has already commented on many of the issues when we discussed the previous group of amendments.

David Kidney: The clause imposes a statutory duty on a local authority to provide adequate resources for the local coroner service, but what if a local authority does not provide adequate resources and is in breach of its duty? The Bill is silent. I asked the Minister that question when she gave evidence on the first day, and she thought that the ability of the chief coroner to make an investigation and recommendations, perhaps allied to the coroner service and the Government of the day putting that authority in a bad light to the public, might be sufficient pressure. However, the Government of the day might regret not having the ability to intervene and sort out such a problem, should the time arise. My amendment 92 proposes one way in which a Government might want to intervene to make a direction to solve the problem. I am open to the Minister saying that that is not the right solution, but there should be a solution.

Alun Michael: I wonder whether I can make an allied point, which is more of a clause stand part point, but might be helpful for the Minister to reply to at the same time. I am looking for clarity about who is responsible for providing the coroner service in future. Something like 90 per cent. of coroners officers are currently employed by police authorities rather than local authorities. It is intended that coroners officers will continue to be employed by either police or local authorities, with the transfer of the two subject to local agreement, as is now the case.
The problem is that, reading the Bill as it stands, the wording appears to make it clear that local authorities are compelled to provide the service, if the police do not, but I am not absolutely clear that police authorities are obligated to carry on providing the service, if they do so at the moment. My question is, if the Bill goes through in its present form, police authorities that currently employ coroner officers must continue to do so unless a transfer to local authorities is agreed mutually. If that is not absolutely clear, will the Minister look at it again and seek to make it explicit and clear on Report, so that there is no doubt?
The police can be wonderful, but they can also change their arrangements quite quickly without looking at the impact on other authorities, which we have seen on a number of occasions. The hon. Member for Cardiff, Central will be aware of discussions about changes to some arrangements in south Wales at the moment, which the police have announced without, as far as one can see, discussing the matter with anyone. That example does not involve coroners, but the point is the same. If there are to be changes in the current arrangements, they ought to involve adequate notice and agreement between the police authority and the local authority.
I ask the Minister to consider removing any ambiguity on Report to clarify the Governments intentions now. The police service already has heavy involvement in the matter of death investigation, which is going to continue, whereas it is not really a part of the daily business of the local authority. I would be happy to accept a short speech from her saying, My right hon. Friend is right. The police authority will not be able to opt out unilaterally from providing the coroner service.

Bridget Prentice: I am afraid that I cannot commend the amendments to the Committee, because I do not think that it would be appropriate to give the Lord Chancellor and the chief coroner direct powers over local and police authority funding decisions. However, the Bill will confer on the chief coroner significant influence over such matters. We believe that his or her powers of persuasion and negotiation, together with the opportunity to name and shame recalcitrant local authorities, are probably a more appropriate and proportionate response to the issue addressed by the amendments. I am repeating what I said on the matter to my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford.
We know, as AndrÃ(c) Rebello made clear in his evidence, that some coroners are very well resourced. It is also important to acknowledge that the reforms of the death certification system are expected to lead to a significant reduction in the number of deaths referred to the coroner. That in itself should lead to significant savings, which can be reinvested to deliver an improved service for bereaved families.
The chief coroners powers as a result of the Bill go beyond any that coroners currently have when negotiating with their local authorities. In addition, the new inspection regime will examine and comment on the use of resources. A new complaints system will give a good indicator of the views of bereaved families and highlight trends pointing to resource deficiencies. The package satisfies me that the new arrangements will be sufficient to deliver proper resources to coroners. If I am wrong, we can return to the matter, but for now, I contend that the case for the amendment has not been made, and I ask that it is withdrawn.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth asked about police authorities. He is right that there must be an agreement between the local authority and the police authority before officers are withdrawn. If we need to strengthen that requirement and make it clearer in the Bill, I will certainly consider it.
Amendment 261 would compel a local authority to take into account the coroners view when providing not only accommodation but staff. Again, I do not believe that that is necessary. The Bill requires a proper provision of resources and provides a role for the chief coroner in that. Clause 23 already places a statutory duty on local authorities, in partnership with police authorities where relevant, to secure the provision of whatever officers and other staff the coroner for that area needs to carry out their function. It is therefore implicit that the coroner will be consulted on their need for coroners officers and other support staff. I therefore ask the hon. Lady to withdraw her amendment.

Jennifer Willott: I thank the Minister for putting on record the fact that coroners should be consulted on staffing levels. With that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 23 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 24 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 4

Powers of senior coroners

Henry Bellingham: I beg to move amendment 34, in schedule 4, page 127, line 41, leave out from Coroner to end of line 43.

Roger Gale: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 120, in schedule 4, page 128, line 41, at end insert
(7) The Secretary of State must issue a code of practice in connection with the entry and search of land and the seizure of anything on the land by a senior coroner..

Henry Bellingham: Paragraph 3(1) of schedule 4 states:
A senior coroner conducting an investigation under this Part, if authorised
in writing
(a) by the Chief Coroner, or
(b) by another senior coroner nominated by the Chief Coroner to give authorisation,
may enter and search any land specified in the authorisation.
My concern is simple. We believe that too many agencies have too much power to enter and search land or property. That is why we want to delete paragraph (b) and retain the powers in the hands of the chief coroner only, not other senior coroners or those nominated by the chief coroner. The measure is simple and straightforward. It will simply add safeguards for householders, landowners and other such people who might come up against a totally unscrupulous situation in which those powers are abused. I commend the amendment to the Committee.

Jennifer Willott: Amendment 120 relates specifically to the introduction of a code of practice relating to the entry to land. We have tabled it because it seems somewhat odd that police officers must abide by a code of practice but coroners will not need to do so.

Sitting suspended.

On resuming

Jennifer Willott: I was speaking briefly to amendment 120, which would introduce a code of practice for the entry and search of land. I would be grateful if the Minister addressed two issues. First, the police must abide by a code of practice when entering and searching. It would be helpful for coroners to have a similar code. In some areas such as health and safety, they must have detailed parameters and guidance to work within.
I am afraid that the second issue relates to railway lines and utilities, which we discussed earlier. The schedule gives the senior coroner the power to require any other thing to be produced or to
seize anything that is on the land.
I am sure it is not intended that that should include things such as railway sleepers and electrical equipment. Such things are technically on the land and could be produced or seized, so they fall within the provision. Will the Minister confirm that that is not the intention and undertake to consider the wording? There are a number of things that could be involved that were not intended to be.

Bridget Prentice: Amendment 34 would prevent the chief coroner from nominating a senior coroner to authorise search and entry. That would fetter the coroners ability to search and enter premises and to seize items. The clause was drafted as it is because time is of the essence in such circumstances. I hope that the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk will withdraw the amendment.
It is important for somebody who can grant the power to be available 24 hours a day. There will be times when the chief coroner or one of his deputies is not available. The intention is to allow the group of senior coroners to inform the chief coroner of any permission to search and enter that they grant. The amendment would mean that if the chief coroner was unavailable, the quality of evidence could be impaired severely or lost entirely. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not wish to impede a coroners investigation in that way.
On amendment 120, I assure the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central that paragraph 2 of schedule 4 makes it clear that the coroner does not have the power to require anything to be provided that a person could not be required to provide to a civil court. I suspect that power lines would fall into that category. On that basis, I hope she will not press her amendment.

Henry Bellingham: On the basis of the Ministers comments, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the schedule be the Fourth schedule to the Bill.

David Kidney: I wish to ask the Minister about the powers of the chief coroner in trying to prevent future avoidable deaths under paragraph 6 of the schedule. We had a short debate under clause 5 on what is now called the rule 43 procedure, whereby coroners raise issues with people who can do something about avoidable deaths.
During the evidence-taking sessions, we had a debate about what happens in Australia. The Samaritans stated in a memorandum that it greatly approves of the procedure there. It mentioned developments in Australia such as the national database of coronial information, a quarterly publication called Fatal Facts, and examples of coronial recommendations that are published widely. My coroner in Staffordshire, Mr. Andrew Haigh, sent me a copy of a publication by the Victorian Government called Residential Aged Care Coronial Communique, which is a subscription service for people connected to residential aged care. I was given volume 3 of issue 5, from December 2008, which is mostly about the effect of warfarin. There are three coroners cases about warfarin, and an expert commentary about its use as a drug for treating a number of conditions.
Those are all commendable practices from Australia. Under the current drafting of the Bill, can the chief coroner in this country decide to do that kind of public information work at a wider level, including subscription services to people who are interested? I cannot see a power in the Bill that would allow the chief coroner to do that at all, or to be paid or claim expenses for doing that. Does the Minister agree that that would be a valuable service by the chief coroner? If so, is there sufficient flexibility in the Bill for the chief coroner to have the power to do that and to have their services paid for?

Bridget Prentice: As the Bill stands, it probably does not contain the flexibility that my hon. Friend is looking for. However, I hope that I can reassure him that we are looking at how to improve the Bill in that respect, particularly by looking at the Australian experience. There might well be something of that nature in the Bill on Report.

Question put and agreed to.

Schedule 4 accordingly agreed to.

Clause 25 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 5 agreed to.

Clause 26 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 6

Allowances, fees and expenses

Jennifer Willott: I beg to move amendment 262, in schedule 6, page 132, line 22, leave out (or on behalf of) and insert
the relevant local authority, on behalf of.

Roger Gale: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 263, in schedule 6, page 132, line 25, leave out (or on behalf of) and insert
the relevant local authority, on behalf of.
Amendment 264, in schedule 6, page 133, line 3, leave out (or on behalf of) and insert
the relevant local authority, on behalf of.
Amendment 265, in schedule 6, page 133, line 25, leave out from coroners to end of line 26.

Jennifer Willott: The amendments relate to the issue of coroners expenses. The Bill replicates the current circumstances, but there are significant problems with the present situation regarding expenses. At the moment, a coroner is personally responsible for paying expenses out of their own pocket and claiming back for juries, witness costs and general costs of the inquest. That can be a huge amount of money, particularly in the case of jury inquests. Coroners pay all that out themselves and claim it back afterwards. It is a bizarre situation; there are very fewif anyother jobs where a person would be expected to fund something like that out of their own pocket and salary.
A coroner wrote to me to express his deep concern at having to take on personal liability for £50,000 because it was considered that LiveNote stenography recording was important to a particular trial, which involved the Home Office. Originally, the local authority refused to guarantee payment, so he had to take on personal liability himself. That seems a very strange situation.
The Minister said earlier that coroners are, or would be, indemnified against the costs incurred in a judicial review. I have had letters from coroners that say the exact reverse, so perhaps the Minister could clarify that point. There seems to be concern among coroners about a lack of such protection following a couple of cases. I understand that the law has already been amended a couple of times, but there are still concerns about the matter and I would be grateful if the Minister clarified that point today.
It is completely inappropriate that senior coroners have to pay for the costs of running an inquest out of their own pocket. There is no way that a judge or magistrate would be expected to pay the running costs of a court case that they were hearing. It seems extraordinary that coroners are expected to do that, particularly given that the costs can be quite substantial. Has that issue been considered, and have any other suggestions been made to bring coroners in line with the standard practice of almost every other employee?

Bridget Prentice: Schedule 6 provides a clear structure for paying allowances to jurors, witnesses, pathologists, coroners and anyone else who is eligible to receive them. The structure should be appropriate and transparent as well as flexible, which will make it simpler both to claim for and to pay allowances. I am not prepared to accept the amendments as they stand. None the less, I understand what the hon. Lady is trying to achieve. There is a discrepancy in coroners paying out that money directly. We made the change in the 2006 draft Bill as a direct result of the representations made by the Coroners Society, which wanted such flexibility to be available. I will have to think seriously about whether to change that during the Bills progress through Parliament.
On judicial review, I can only repeat what I said earlier. Coroners may have misunderstood something in the past, but I can assure them that they would be indemnified if they were judicially reviewed. At the moment, I would be reluctant to remove the local flexibility that the Bill makes available to both coroners and local authorities in the way in which reimbursements are made.

Jennifer Willott: Given that the Minister has clarified one point and said that she will consider the other one, I am happy to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Schedule 6 agreed to.

Clause 27 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 7 agreed to.

Clause 28 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 29

Inspection of coroner system

Jennifer Willott: I beg to move amendment 124, in clause 29, page 15, line 18, at end insert
and provide a copy of the report to the Chief Coroner..

Roger Gale: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 123, in clause 29, page 15, line 39, after coroner,, insert
a copy may be provided to the Chief Coroner, and.

Jennifer Willott: Amendments 124 and 123 are common sense. I should be grateful if the Minister confirmed whether my understanding is correct. The clause states that the Lord Chancellor can ask the chief inspector to inspect and put together a report, but it does not mention whether the chief coroner will receive a copy of that report. I am sure that it is common sense that the person who is in overall charge should be able to see such a report and comment on it, but I should be grateful if the Minister confirmed that.

Bridget Prentice: I can give the hon. Lady that assurance. Of course the chief coroner would receive the report. There may be others who would benefit from seeing the report, as well. I am thinking of the Audit Commission and so on.

Jennifer Willott: With that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 29 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 30

Appeals to the chief coroner

Jennifer Willott: I beg to move amendment 129, in clause 30, page 16, leave out line 26.
This is a probing amendment whose purpose is to clarify what is intended by subsection (5). The subsection gives the Lord Chancellor the power to amend the list of reasons for an appeal. Will the Minister explain in what circumstances such a power would be used? The list is pretty comprehensive, which would mean that the Lord Chancellor would have a fairly blank cheque. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister clarified the intention behind the subsection and what she foresees its being used for.

Bridget Prentice: If I were to accept the hon. Ladys amendment, it would prevent the Lord Chancellor from amending the list of coroner decisions that can be appealed under subsection (2), which would not be desirable. As this is an entirely new system, tailored especially for the coroner system in England and Wales, it is important to retain flexibility as the system beds down. It is likely, for example, that some of the processes contained in the Bill will be piloted before full implementation. We will be able to see from that how best to take things forward.
If I were to accept this amendment, it would be impossible to introduce new decisions that could be subject to appeals or to amend the list of appeals that are subject to appeal at the moment, even slightly, without recourse in both cases to primary legislation. If the Lord Chancellor were to make an order to change decisions that can be appealed, it would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure and so would receive full parliamentary scrutiny. It would be both unnecessary and undesirable at this stage to remove that power from the Bill. We have already published a delegated powers memorandum alongside the Bill and will give careful consideration to any recommendations that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee puts forward in the other place. Until we have the benefit of that Committees report, I would prefer that the hon. Lady withdrew her amendment.

Jennifer Willott: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Henry Bellingham: I beg to move amendment 362, in clause 30, page 16, line 46, at end insert
, subject to all coroners enjoying indemnity for costs..
The amendment relates to subsection (7) which deals with what the chief coroner may do if the appeal is successful and allowed. The chief coroner can take a number of different actions including amending the determination, and they can substitute any other decision. Under paragraph (d), they can
make any order (including an order as to costs)
that they think appropriate.
My concern is that the senior coroner should enjoy indemnity from costs being awarded against them. We talked earlier about the independence of that office. We were talking about the need to ensure that morale in the service remains high. We are also, to some extent, moving into uncharted territory with the new appeals system. I am sure that the Minister will agree that while there is a great deal to recommend the new appeals system, there is a whole new area of opportunity for people who may feel disgruntled and upset, which is a good thing in many ways.
I mentioned two cases earlier where the families were extremely distressed about what happenedin one case a death certificate was not amendable, and in the other the inquest had been adjourned and was not going to be restarted. Under the clause, they would be able to appeal. The Minister in her reply to that earlier discussion said that the clause would play a pivotal part in giving those families the sort of remedies that they are quite entitled to expect. I am concerned that there might be an order for costs against the coroner personally. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that and tell us whether she is prepared to accept amendment 362.

Bridget Prentice: I am not persuaded that there is a case for the amendment. It would be for the chief coroner to make any order that they think fit, based on the circumstances of the particular case. That would mean that coroners and the local authority, which funds them, may well have to pay the costs that the chief coroner orders. However, coroners would not have to pay any expenses from their own pockets, because such funds would come from the funding of the coroner service.
One of the reasons why I cannot accept the amendment is that the appeals process must not only be totally transparent and fair, but be seen to be such. The amendment runs counter to that, because it could mean that if coroners were indemnified against costs, they would be seen to be treated more favourably than other parties against whom the chief coroner could make an order. Paragraph 9(2)(c) of schedule 6 allows for regulations to be made about coroners expenses arising from appeal decisions. To the extent that additional provisions are needed in respect of appeal costs, it is best that they are made there rather than in the Bill. I therefore hope that the hon. Gentleman will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

Henry Bellingham: My only concern is that judges and magistrates are indemnified from any award or costs against them, whereas coroners do not appear to be. On the basis of what the Minister has told me this evening, I will reflect on what she has said. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 30 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 31

Investigation by Chief Coroner or by judge at Chief Coroners invitation

Bridget Prentice: I beg to move amendment 24, in clause 31, page 17, line 11, after judge insert , former judge or former coroner.

Roger Gale: With this it will be convenient to take Government amendments 25 to 30.

Bridget Prentice: The Bill currently provides that the chief coroner may carry out an investigation, instead of the relevant local coroner, or may make a request to the Lord Chief Justice for a serving judge to carry out an investigation. I envisage that that power would be used sparingly, but it allows the chief coroner, or a senior judge, to take responsibility for specific investigations, for example when there are legal complexities. This group of amendments extends the pool of persons eligible to conduct investigations in accordance with the provisions in schedule 8, and that includes retired High Court judges, retired Court of Appeal judges and retired senior coroners, much in line with what the hon. Member for Daventry was asking for in an earlier debate.

Alun Michael: I would be grateful if my hon. Friend were to clarify the implications of these amendments. As I understand it, they provide the power to undertake judicial functions, not the power to run an organisation or anything of that sort. Is that the case?

Bridget Prentice: Yes, it is. The provision is about carrying out an investigation. An example is the de Menezes case, where a High Court judge was appointed to deal with that case rather than the local coroner.

Alun Michael: A judicial function.

Bridget Prentice: Yes, it would be a judicial function. That is why we have tabled these amendments. The amendments include the opportunity for the chief coroner to make the request of a retired coroner, for example, without the need to consult the Lord Chief Justice. Amendment 27 clarifies the reference, elsewhere in the legislation, to include not only a judge nominated under paragraph 2 of schedule 8, but also a retired judge or a retired coroner who is acting as the coroner.
Amendment 26 inserts the requirement for a
person nominated or requested...to conduct the investigation
to formally agree to do so. There was less need for that when the people who could be nominated were all serving judges. However, there is a need for a formal acceptance of a case where a judge or coroner is requested to come out of retirement.
Amendment 28 closes a potential loophole. It is possible, under the employment procedure, for someone to be a senior coroner and subsequently to become a High Court judge. Paragraph 3(1)(a) simply refers to a person who is not a senior coroner or a former senior coroner. Paragraph 3 would not cover a case where the investigation is conducted by a High Court judge who used to be a senior coroner, and the amendment covers that possibility.
Amendment 29 makes provision for hearing appeals. Normally, appeals against a coroners decision would be heard by the chief coroner. However, where the investigation is carried out by a High Court judge, a retired High Court judge or a retired Court of Appeal judge, the appeal will be heard by someone nominated by the Lord Chief Justice who is a practising Court of Appeal judge. Where an investigation is carried out by a circuit judge, any appeal will be heard by someone who is a practising High Court judge, allowing for the judicial levels to be kept intact.
Amendment 30 allows a coroner who was appointed under the 1988 Coroners Act, and retires before the reformed system comes into effect, to conduct an investigation when asked to do so by the chief coroner. Allowing only retired senior coronersthose who were appointed under the reformed systemwill have little impact in the first few years. We have allowed that flexibility to make that pool of experience available. On that basis, I hope that the Committee will accept these amendments.

Henry Bellingham: I am grateful to the Minister for her explanation of the amendments raison dÃªtre, but I have one question for her. We have had a long time to get the Bill right, including a three-year gap between the draft Bill and the Bill before us, so will she tell us where the amendments came from? They are sensible amendments, but I should like to know whether she suddenly thought them up herself or whether she was lobbied by various organisations. What is their provenance?

Bridget Prentice: The hon. Gentleman is right that this Bill has had a long incubation period. I cannot remember exactly the provenance of the amendments, but I suspect that having had all that time to mull the proposals over, the Coroners Society, among others, might have seen a gap such as that in the example that I have just given in the time. I shall tell the Committee in writing where we dreamed up the amendments.

Henry Bellingham: I am grateful to the Minister for that. May I suggest that in future she gives us the amendments, so that we can table them and get the credit?

Amendment 24 agreed to.

Clause 31, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 8

Investigation by Chief Coroner or by judge at Chief Coroners invitation

Amendments made: 25, in schedule 8, page 135, line 35, leave out sub-paragraph (1) and insert
(1) If requested to do so by the Chief Coroner, the Lord Chief Justice may nominate a person within sub-paragraph (1A) to conduct an investigation into a persons death.
(1A) A person is within this sub-paragraph if at the time of the nomination he or she is
(a) a judge of the High Court,
(b) a Circuit judge, or
(c) a person who has held office as a judge of the Court of Appeal or of the High Court (but no longer does so),
and is under the age of 75.
(1B) The Chief Coroner may request a person who at the time of the request
(a) has held office as a senior coroner (but no longer does so), and
(b) is under the age of 75,
to conduct an investigation into a persons death..
Amendment 26, in schedule 8, page 136, line 1, leave out from beginning to has in line 3 and insert
If a person nominated or requested under this paragraph agrees to conduct the investigation
(a) that person is under a duty to do so;
(b) that person.
Amendment 27, in schedule 8, page 136, line 9, leave out judge nominated under this paragraph and insert
person who has been nominated or requested under this paragraph to conduct an investigation and has agreed to do so.
Amendment 28, in schedule 8, page 136, line 15, leave out a person who is not a senior coroner and insert
the Chief Coroner or some other person who is a judge of the High Court or a Circuit judge, or by a person who has held office as a judge of the Court of Appeal or of the High Court.
Amendment 29, in schedule 8, page 136, line 21, leave out paragraphs (a) and (b) and insert
(a) where the person mentioned in sub-paragraph (1)(a) is
(i) a judge of the High Court, or
(ii) a person who has held office as a judge of the Court of Appeal or of the High Court,
a judge of the Court of Appeal;
(b) otherwise, a judge of the High Court..(Bridget Prentice.)

Schedule 8, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 32

Guidance by the Lord Chancellor

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Roger Gale: With this it will be convenient to consider new clause 17Report to Lord Chancellor
(1) The Chief Coroner must give to the Lord Chancellor an annual report which
(a) contains matters that the Chief Coroner wishes to bring to the attention of the Lord Chancellor,
(b) includes matters which the Lord Chancellor has asked the Chief Coroner to include in the report,
(c) contains an assessment for that year of the consistency of standards between the coroner areas,
(d) contains a summary for that year of the number, nature and outcome of appeals under section 30, and
(e) contains a summary of the recommendations made by senior coroners under paragraph 6(1) of Schedule 4.
(2) A report covering one year must be given to the Lord Chancellor by 1 July the following year.
(3) The Lord Chancellor must publish all reports provided under this section and must lay a copy before each House of Parliament within 60 days of receiving a copy of the report..

Jennifer Willott: The new clause is closely related to the point raised a few minutes ago by the hon. Member for Stafford as it concerns the transparency, openness and accountability of the system on which the Committee took a lot of evidence as it was raised by a number of witnesses. We looked particularly at how to ensure that the system identifies patterns, not just in situations such as Hillsborough, where there are many people in a similar area, but in cases across the UK in which similar verdicts are recorded by different coroners. That will help us to tackle broader medical or health and safety issues as they arise. The new clause would place a duty on the chief coroner to produce an annual report that would be provided to the Lord Chancellor, who would be obliged to publish it and lay it before the House of Commons, so that it would be openly available and there would be opportunities for much broader oversight of any issues arising.
As the hon. Member for Stafford said, there are many examples around the world of coroners systems that operate effectively and openly, in which lessons are learned in a much more transparent fashion than has been the case up to now in the UK. He gave as examples the systems in New South Wales and Ontario, Canada, where verdicts and recommendations are made publicly available and are widely disseminated so that lessons can be learned and patterns identified. The new clause attempts to do something similar here.
I am prepared to accept that the Minister might not like the wording of the new clause, but I would be grateful if she gave her views on what could be done to ensure that we identify broader patterns as they occur across the UK, pick up on recommendations that coroners have made in different coronial areas, and ensure that greater transparency and accountability is built into the system.

Bridget Prentice: I hope that I can give the hon. Lady some assurances. I think that there are sufficient powers elsewhere in the Bill dealing with making annual reports. For example, clause 33(3)(d) and (e) allows for regulations to be made on the provision and disclosure of information, and for the Lord Chancellor or the chief coroner to require information from senior coroners. That measure will enable that information to be collated and published. I can also confirm that the regulations are likely to include the matters that the hon. Lady proposes in new clause 17. For example, each year the chief coroner will have to provide a report to the Lord Chancellor with an assessment of different coroners performance and on a range of other issues, which will then be published. That covers some of the hon. Ladys examples. Having said that, there is no great principle at stake here, and although I will not undertake now to table a Government amendment at a later stage, I will reflect before Report on what the hon. Lady has said.
I will touch on clause 32 stand part. While we have argued and discussed all other elements of the Bill, this clause is important in that it gives the Lord Chancellor the ability, for the first time, to issue statutory guidance on how the coroner system is expected to operate in relation to interested parties. For the purpose of clause 32 interested parties include a spouse, a civil partner, a partner, a parent, a child, a brother, a sister, a grandparent, a grandchild, the child of a brother or sister, a stepfather, a stepmother, a half-brother and a half-sister. A full list is in clause 36.
We anticipate that the first guidance that the Lord Chancellor issues will be the charter for the bereaved, and that is why I wish to speak a little on this now. We published a revised draft charter along with the Bill, and I am grateful for the many positive comments that hon. Members have made about it. That charter will set out the services that bereaved families can expect to receive under a reformed system and the means of redress if those services are not met, and it highlights other opportunities that families will have for involvement. Equally, it sets out families responsibilities, including information to be provided to the coroner. Given that our immediate aim for reform is to improve the service that bereaved people receive, the charter is specifically for the bereaved. However, it is likely that guidance will be issued on other aspects of, and participants in, coroners investigations, such as non-professional witnesses who have been involved blamelessly, in transport crashes for example. This clause is central to our aim to standardise and improve the service that bereaved people receive from the reformed coroner system and on that basis I commend the clause to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 32 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 33 and 34 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 35

Abolition of the office of coroner of the Queens household

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Roger Gale: With this it will be convenient to consider new clause 8Transfer of the office of coroner of the Queens household
The office of coroner of the Queens household will, at the retirement of the present incumbent, be transferred to the Chief Coroner..

Henry Bellingham: Clause 35 abolishes the office of coroner of the Queens household. The current holder of that office is Michael Burgess, who is also HM coroner for Surrey. We discussed earlier the great historic nature of the traditional post of coroner. The post of coroner to the King or Queens household is also an ancient one and I have worked out that it dates back to William I. It would be a great pity if it were abolished without good reason. Was this measure recommended in the June 2003 Luce report? What sort of discussions have take place between the Ministry of Justice and the Palace, at the time of that report and subsequently? I am well aware that there have been issues more recently, particularly relating to the summoning of a suitable jury in the inquest of the late Diana Princess of Wales. That obviously posed challenges. I suppose it could be argued that the exclusive nature of the office is difficult to integrate with the new national framework that is being put in place, and I understand why the Government may be keen to look at how the office has been held by different coroners throughout the country in the past. At the moment, it is held by the Surrey coroner, who will become the senior coroner for that area.
I am suggesting that, instead of getting rid of the post completely, it might be more sensible to retain it, because from time to time important and sensitive matters will have to be dealt with concerning the Queens or Kings household. It is important not to abolish the office, but to transfer it to the chief coroner. Under our amendment, the chief coroner would also be the Coroner of the Queens Household, which makes a great deal of sense.

Alun Michael: I am intrigued by the hon. Gentlemans suggestion, which seems to run counter to the developments in the Bill. He referred to the fact that the Bill establishes a national framework, but it does not establish a national organisation. The purpose of my earlier questions to the Minister was to clarify that the amendments that she moved a short time ago were to extend the judicial competence of the chief coroner, not to give the chief coroner an organisational responsibility. The chief coroner is a judge, so he is not necessarily competent to run anything. I say that with some feeling, because I was the first Minister to be a member of a jury when the legislation changed to allow MPs and Ministers to be members of juries. The experience did not increase my confidence in the capability of judges to run anything.
The hon. Gentleman is suggesting that we pass responsibility to the chief coroner, who would then have to run something and to be the coroner, instead of merely being the overseer or regulator of the coronial service. Surely the hon. Gentlemans suggestion is inconsistent with the rest of the Bill.

Henry Bellingham: With respect, the right hon. Gentleman overestimates how onerous the duties of the Coroner of the Queens Household are. Mr. Burgess, who is currently the Coroner of the Queens Household and the Surrey coroner, probably spends 1 per cent. of his time dealing with the former office. It is much more a ceremonial post, and if the Government are keen to move it away from the senior coroners, I am suggesting that they keep the great ceremonial office in place. I know that the right hon. Gentleman is keen on getting rid of a lot of things, but I am more of a traditionalist.

Alun Michael: With respect, the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that the new post, which is innovative, should take on that activity, but surely he is describing a local coroner having responsibility as Coroner of the Queens Household. He is being far more dramatic and innovative than I am.

Henry Bellingham: I am suggesting a compromise. I understand why the Government want to take the post away from what will be senior coroners. They want to tidy up the system. I do not know whether Luce suggested this in his reportthe Minister may be able to touch on thatbut one way of keeping alive a great historic, albeit a mainly ceremonial office would be to transfer it to the chief coroner, which would be neat. The Minister may say that my new clause is unnecessary, and that she will think again and keep the post of Coroner of the Queens Household with the senior coroners.

Jennifer Willott: As well as the ceremonial functions, an operational function can be invoked. If the Government abolish the post, is the hon. Gentleman clear about where the operational side would go and who would be responsible for that?

Henry Bellingham: I am pleased to say that members of the royal family do not die very often, thank goodness; but, when one of them does die, presumably, the death will now be dealt with by the local coroner, along with many others. At the moment, if a member of the royal family dies, the death is dealt with by the coroner of the Queens household. It is an ancient, ceremonial office, and I believe in keeping such offices in place. There is a good reason for doing so, and I hope that the Minister will listen to our argument.

Alun Michael: The hon. Gentleman has tabled a piece of nonsense.

George Howarth: My right hon. Friend said to me a moment ago that he could not resist it. May I suggest to him that he might?

Alun Michael: The Opposition, having tabled a serious provision, should be taken seriously and challenged. The chief coroner is a regulator, and he or she will have oversight of training, standards and so on. He will not undertake coronial duties as such, apart from the responsibility that the Opposition seek to move on to him. Could we imagine Ofcom running a radio station, even if it was known as the royal radio station? Could we imagine Ofwat running a small, royal water company, or something like that? The new clause may be exploratory, but the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk did not say that; he suggested that it was serious. If he had suggested that the post be retained and attached to a local coroner, as it currently is, some degree of tradition would have been retained, but what he suggests does not seem logical.

Bridget Prentice: When we reach the end of a subject, the debate always becomes lively again.
The most recent example of an inquest requiring the post of the Queens coroner was the inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, which, as was mentioned, was opened by the current coroner of the Queens household, Michael Burgess. Dr. Burgess is also the coroner for Surrey. Owing to the complexity of that case, which required almost full-time attention in the run-up to, and throughout, the inquest, the proceedings were eventually conducted by Lord Justice Scott Baker. Before that inquest, the last time that a case required the involvement of the coroner of the Queens household was in the 1980s, and I really cannot see the merit in retaining a post when there is work only every 15 to 20 years.
Under the Bill, a death that currently falls within the jurisdiction of the Queens coroner will simply be dealt with by the coroner for the area where the body lies. As with any case, excepting certified inquests, the chief coroner will have the power to transfer the case to another senior coroner, to investigate it himself or herself, or to require the Lord Chief Justice to nominate a judge to conduct the investigation. That seems perfectly satisfactory and, indeed, the many people whom we have consulted about the Bill since it was published in draft have not objected to the proposal in any way. I do not know what Tom Luce said in his report, but I suspect that it was very little, as he will have considered it a relatively minor matter. He is unlikely to have commented on it at all. I must say to the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk that, until now, no single person has raised any concern with us about these plans.
The abolition of the office of coroner of the Queens household is one of two provisions in the Bill which require Her Majestys consent, and that will be signified in the normal way on Third Reading. It would not therefore be appropriate for me to say any more on the matter, given Her Majestys constitutional position.

Henry Bellingham: I am grateful to the Minister for that explanation. We reserve our right to look at the issue when it comes up later.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 35 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 36 to 38 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 9 agreed to.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. (Ian Lucas.)

Adjourned till Thursday 26 February at Nine oclock.